Give n to Christ 

AND Other Sermons 

BY 

ToHN W. Pratt 





GIVEN TO CHRIST 



AND 



OTHER SERMONS. 



BY 

y 

JOHN W^^^'PRATT, D.D. 



WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF HIS LIFE AND LABORS. 




NEW YORK: 

ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY, 

38 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET. 
09 




COPYRIGHT, 1889, BY 
M. W. PRATT. 



EDWARD o. Jenkins' sons, 
Printers and ElectrotyPers^ 

20 NORTH WILLIAM ST., NEW YORK. 



PREFACE. 



If the writer of these sermons had published them 
himself, doubtless they would have had many imper- 
fections removed ; but as that could not be, in compli- 
ance with numerous requests, I give them just as they 
were prepared for the various congregations to which 
he preached ; with the daily prayer that God will use 
them, and feeling assured that could his voice now be 
heard, his language would be that of Dr. Bonar: 

" Not myself, but the truth that in life I have spoken, 
Not myself, but the seeds that in life I have sown. 
Shall pass on to ages, all about me forgotten 
Save the truth I have spoken, the things I have done," 

M. W. Pratt. 

Louisville, Ky., 1888. 



(3) 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



BY C. A. STILLMAN, D.D. 



The Eey. Johjt Wood Peatt, D.D., was born at St. Mary's, 
Georgia, on tlie 12tli of May, 1827. He sprang from an honored 
ancestry ; on his father's side from the grand old Puritan stock 
recognized as the chief glory of Old and 'New England, and on 
his mother's from the English gentry, that class which has been 
called more noble than " The ISTobles." 

His father, the Kev. Horace S. Pratt, was a Presbyterian min- 
ister and Professor of English Literature in the University of 
Alabama at the time of his death in 181-0. His mother, Jane 
Wood, died when he was only one year old, so that his maternal 
training devolved upon his second mother — a most intelligent, 
godly, and in every way estimable woman. His early youth gave 
indications of the ability which marked his after-life. When 
only seventeen he graduated with distinguished honor at the Uni- 
versity of Alabama. While a mere boy he consecrated himself 
to the service of Christ, and very soon resolved to prepare himself 
for that profession in which he became pre-eminent. Having 
completed his theological course at Princeton, N. J., he was 
licensed by the Presbytery of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, May 6, 1848, 
six days before he reached his majority. The youthful preacher 
soon attracted attention by his discourses, which were rich in elo- 
quent diction and sound instruction. He was called to the church 
at Marion, Alabama, in October, 1849. Such was his aptness to 
teach that he was elected to the Professorship which had been 
made vacant by the death of his father ten years before, viz., 
) that of English Literature and Belles-Lettres. He accepted this 
position and became distinguished for the clearness of his instruc- 
tions, and at the same time an eminent example of the art of elo- 
quence which he taught. 

(5) 



6 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



Prof. W, S. Wyman, of the University of Alabama, says of 
him at this period : " When the Rev. John W. Pratt became the 
Professor of Enghsh Literature at the beginning of the collegiate 
year 1850-51, I was a member of the senior class. After I was 
graduated in 1851 I became a member of the Faculty, and I con- 
tinued to be a colleague of Mr. Pratt during the whole of his 
fifteen years' stay in the University. I feel, therefore, quite 
competent to speak of him during this part of his life. It was 
the duty of the Professor of English Literature to teach Rhetoric, 
Logic, Ancient and Modern History, and the History of English 
Literature, to supervise the writing of Essays and Orations by the 
three higher classes in the University, and to train the classes in 
Oratory. Mr. Pratt was only twenty-three years of age when he 
entered upon the important duties of this professorship. He had 
the enthusiasm of youth and a great love for his work. He was 
himself an eloquent orator, the master of a polished style, and 
remarkably well read for one of his age in the great masters of 
English Literature. At the outset he was fortunate enough to 
inspire his pupils with something of his own ardor in the study 
of the great exemplars of a pure English style. From causes 
not necessary to be mentioned here, the Department of English 
in the University had been for ten years previously in a languish- 
ing condition. The writing of Essays had been regarded by the 
students as a heavy task ; and the revision of them by the Pro- 
fessors in charge for the time being had been for the most part 
perfunctory. Practice in oratory had been confined to the dec- 
?amation of select pieces by the classes once a month before the 
President of the University. Mr. Pratt at once introduced a 
new and thorough system for the revision of original compositions, 
the result of which proved to be so excellent that the same system 
has been retained with but slight modifications to the present 
time. In Oratory he began to train every student separately 
and systematically. Prior to Mr. Pratt's time the Department of 
Rhetoric had been limited to the study of some short superficial 
book on literary criticism. His best work here was the introduc- 
tion of a thorough treatise on the art of Invention, a book which 
required hard study to master, but the beneficial results of the 
hard study were soon manifested in the disciplined intellects of 
the advanced scholars. Mr. Pratt was deeply interested during 
his residence at the University in the moral and rehgious im- 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



7 



provement of the students. He organized classes for the study 
of the Bible among the students, and trained them in the lessons. 
The students' prayer-meeting was, as I well remember, conducted 
by him, and was for a long time held at his house." 

Mr. Pratt occupied this chair until 1865, when the University 
was suspended by the ravages of the Civil War. It was during 
this period he accumulated the store of varied learning which 
rendered his preaching so profound and instructive. He never 
made any display of it, for he despised pedantry, but it gave 
weight, accuracy, variety, and beauty to his exposition of divine 
truth. He by no means forsook the ministry while Professor. 
He loved to preach, and he was often called upon. He preached 
frequently in the city, but he was especially fond of his little 
rural charge, preaching with equal acceptability to all classes of 
people. He charmed and edified the most plain and unlettered, 
and attracted the most highly cultivated, because he preached the 
simple Gospel with transparent clearness and earnestness. Many 
have regretted that so much of the prime of his life was spent in 
the class-room, but he was thereby acquiring his higher education 
for the pulpit, and for those triumphs of sacred eloquence which 
crowned his usefulness and made him famous in after-life. 

At the close of the war circumstances led him to open a school 
in Brooklyn, E". Y. In the second year of his stay there he re- 
ceived and accepted a call to the cultivated and important church 
in Lexington, Virginia. 

Pev. James H. Smith, of Lexington, Virginia, writes of his 
work there : " It would have been difficult for him to find a 
centre more favorable for sending out his influence in wide and 
far-reaching streams, than he found in the church at Lexington. 
Washington and Lee University, situated there, held within her 
halls three hundred students, and the Virginia Military Institute 
three hundred more. His peculiar gifts were exactly those best 
calculated to attract and influence young men. Every resident 
of Lexington, and every student of either of these schools during 
the years of his ministry there, will remember without prompt- 
ing, how intense was the interest excited and maintained by his 
preaching. All classes in the community, people of every differ- 
ing faith, and people of none, were drawn to his services. Old 
men, whose time-seared hearts had grown callous with long in- 
difference, exhibited an unwonted sensibility. Young men dis- 



8 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



covered with delight that the truths of revelation furnish worthier 
themes for a higher eloquence than can be inspired by subjects 
less supreme. It would be harder, perhaps, to calculate the 
harvest of this ministry than that of most others, for the sov/er 
planted, not in a single field, but stood as it were on a mountain 
and cast his seeds to the winds, which bore them wherever the 
Southern youth there congregated around him have made their 
thousand homes." 

He continued to be a diligent student and prepared all his 
public exercises with extraordinary labor and care. The discern- 
ing stranger who happened to hear him at the weekly prayer- 
meeting on the stormiest night, had as fair an opportunity of es- 
timating his powers as those who sat before him in the crowded 
church. He spohe words thoroughly credible when he declared 
that he always did his lest. He prepared " beaten oil " for the 
sanctuary — Whence the finished and enduring character of his dis- 
courses, which could stand the most rigid criticism, and which all 
his hearers and readers feel assured will secure them a place in 
the permanent literature of the pulpit. His sermons will live 
and will continue to delight and edify the Church. In place, 
however, of any further estimate of our own, we prefer to insert 
the following true and beautiful tribute from the Plon. J. Ran- 
dolph Tucker, who had ample capacity and opportunity to form 
a correct judgment, having been a member of his church while 
he lived in Lexington, Virginia : 

" The death of Dr. Pratt was sincerely a grief to me, for I 
had been privileged to know him for years as pastor, preacher, and 
friend. He was a very remarkable man in the endowments of 
his mind, as well as in the qualities which made up his character. 
He had an acute and subtle analytic power, which enabled him 
to discover the germs of truth, and to detect the concealed errors 
in the logic of his opponent. This keen insight into the subject 
of his criticism or of his discussion, made his discourse as clear 
as the sunlight. About his thought, and about his expression of 
it, there were no clouds of doubt or of uncertainty. No one 
could fail to see what he saw, to understand what he thought, for 
it was the pure diamond idea reflected in the mirror of a style 
which was simple, yet ornate in its strong, fervid, and classic 
rhetoric. He was logical, and yet imaginative, original, sug- 
gestive, and fertile in his conceptions, and powerful in setting 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH, 



9 



them forth with, all the beauties of expression with which a 
thorough education and refined literary taste could invest human 
thought. 

He was a genuine Calvinist, and so strongly held the Pauline 
type of the Christian faith that his mind never wavered in the 
most profound speculations, and his heart was anchored on the 
'Rock of Ages,' with implicit and humble trust. The grand 
truths of the Bible he held with an intellectual enthusiasm which 
stuTed his whole nature with a deeply sympathetic thrill, and 
which sometim.es shook his bodily frame with visible emotion ; 
and yet, though his mind was so nerved by the grandeur of 
truth, his sympathetic nature was alive to the appeals of distress 
and aiSiction. In the chamber of sickness and death he poured 
the oil of consolation upon the wounds of bereavement with 
gentleness, judgment, and tender sympathy. As a man he was 
brave, manly, candid, and sincere. He was liberal in his charity 
and generous without stint. As a friend he was constant and 
reliable, because while warm in his regard his feelings never 
swayed his judgment. 

" As a preacher of the Gospel he was cogent in reasoning, lu- 
minous in expression, critical in exegesis, earnest in exhortation, 
and always and eminently instructive, practical, and Scriptural. 
He adhered to the written word with fidehty, and condemned 
with force and without compromise all the so-called rationalism 
which wandered from the Scripture into the mazes of a specula- 
tive and false philosophy. As a pastor he was discreet, conserva- 
tive, and practical. He was not obtrusive of counsel, but ever 
ready to give it ; nor intrusive into the domestic habits of his 
people, yet ever willing to advise in regard to them. He sought 
to lead men to the great Teacher to be taught by Him, and never 
did it by ignoble appeals to fear, nor by an unworthy play upon 
the animal emotions of his hearers. He preached the truth as it 
is in Jesus, as the best thing for the man ; with which he would 
have peace and eternal rest, without which he must have unrest 
and eternal despair. Such is my imperfect estimate of Dr. 
Pratt. His memory is one of great value to me, in the instruc- 
tions I received from him, in the guidance I derived from his. 
counsel, and in the support I had from his fiiendship." 

After six years in this important field he accepted the Presi- 
dency of Central University at Pichmond, Kentucky, a young 



10 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



institution established by the Synod of Kentucky. To its organ- 
ization and management he devoted himself for six years, and 
found an ample field for his large experience and eminent scho- 
lastic and practical ability. At the same time he occupied for 
three years the pulpit of the Presbyterian church of Richmond. 
This was his last connection with college work. Professor L. Gr. 
Barbour, of Central University, said of him : 

" He had in a high degree two qualities not always conjoined, 
but both of them needful in the constitution of a first-class 
teacher : great quickness of apprehension and unusual breadth of 
view. He saw into the lesser and intricate points of a subject, 
and his eye swept over the broad relation of its parts and divi- 
sions ; hence he gave clearness of detail and logical method in 
mass. When I first knew him at Princeton Theological Seminary 
he was noted for vivacity and humor. In his latter years a gleam 
of his old manner would occasionally flash out and remind me 
of his early manhood. Add to this his great geniality and unaf- 
fected goodness of heart which made him so popular among the 
students of Central University, and you will have some of the 
prime elements of a teacher," 

Resigning his Presidency in 18Y8, he supplied for some time, 
during the absence of the pastor. Rev. T. H. Skinner, D..D., the 
pulpit of the Second Presbyterian church of Cincinnati, Ohio, 
where he fully sustained his already great reputation as a preacher. 
Indeed he so impressed himself upon a number of Christian gen- 
tlemen of that city that they induced him to attempt a novel en- 
terprise, to bring into contact with the masses his strong and 
attractive presentation of Gospel truth without interfering with 
the regular exercises of the churches. For this purpose the im- 
mense Music Hall was rented, and a service held every Sunday 
afternoon. It proved all they had hoped for. The attendance 
was seldom less than three thousand, and often reached five, 
gathered from all churches and from all ranks in society, includ- 
ing multitudes not accustomed to attend any religious service. 
Here ha found the grandest field for the exercise of his splendid 
powers. His noble intellectual face attracted every eye. He 
commanded perfect order and universal rapt attention. His 
strong, clear, melodious voice, always perfectly modulated, 
reached every ear and rung out with distinct enunciation, force- 
ful emphasis, and often with tremulous notes as he proclaimed 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



11 



the glorious Gospel of the blessed God. He made no failures, 
was always equal to himself, and was manifestly made a pol- 
ished shaft in Jehovah's quiver," and doubtless pierced many a 
doubt-clad mind and many a sin-hardened heart. 

In 1881 he became the successor of the distinguished Dr. 
Stuart Robinson as pastor of the Second Church in Louisville, 
Kentucky. It is needless to say that in this important charge he 
continued to exercise his extraordinary gifts and labors as Christ's 
minister for Christ's people and for the conversion of sinners. 
The following extract, taken from an address delivered at a con- 
gregational meeting by Col. Bennett H. Young, will best show 
the estimation in which he was held by this church : 

" The Southern pulpit, in the past thirty years, has produced 
many widely renowned theologians and preachers. Part are 
dead and some remain with us, but Dr. Pratt, in some respects, 
was surpassed by none. As a writer of sermons, in my opinion 
he had no equal in the American pulpit. There was a pathos, 
tenderness, eloquence, combined with a comprehension of man's 
spiritual and moral forces, which placed him in the very front 
rank of modern preachers. 

" In the elaboration of truth, as set forth in our standards ; in 
the application of doctrine to daily life and as a solace in human 
sorrow ; in the dignity and grandeur of the mental and spiritual 
powers of man, his sermons are a marvel, not only of oratorical 
finish, but of philosophical acumen and discrimination. His 
discourses on the value of human life in its relation to God, the 
resurrection, and man's destiny here and hereafter, are produc- 
tions which will do credit to any age and any man. 

" Confiding in his nature, tender and gentle in all his emotions, 
affectionate in disposition, firm in his Christian faith, with an 
unconditional consecration to the cause of Christ, he was a re- 
markable and unusual character, one the Church should reverence 
and remember, and one whom his friends will never forget. 

" I am aware that these are strong terms I have used in refer- 
ence to my departed friend, but he was worthy of all of them, 
and his life has been a blessing to the Church and a comfort and 
pleasure to those who knew his personal worth and his earnest, 
constant Christian testimony. 

In a less restricted field than was given him he would have 
shone with increased brilliancy. He possessed the power of stir- 



13 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: 



ring and developing the strongest and highest spiritual aspira- 
tions, and none ever heard his words who did not feel impressed 
with nobler ideas of God and truer and better conceptions of 
man's duties and responsibilities to his Creator and Redeemer. 
Wherever he preached, his pure gospel, his zealous, beautiful life, 
and his strong intellectual force will long be felt in the hearts 
and characters of his hearers. 

" JSTor should his efforts be permitted to die. The thoughts of 
such a mind justify and demand preservation and publication, and 
the force of his words will influence and direct a better life in 
those who may read, long after his name and his works are for- 
gotten." 

He supplied the Second Church in Memphis, Tennessee, for 
several months the last year of his life. In the eloquent words 
of Judge Heiskell we see the impression he made on this people : 
" My acquaintance with Dr. Pratt extended only through the 
few months he ministered to us last summer. In that brief 
period I learned to respect, to honor, and to love him. lio man 
I ever met impressed me more profoundly. I do not hesitate to 
say he was one of the most scholarly men I ever knew. While 
his sermons were masterful in substance, his terse and elegant 
style made them always charming. His diction was ornate, 
chaste, and wonderfully graceful. His sentences, burdened with 
logical reasoning and rich and helpful thought, flowed easily and 
felicitously. He never paused for a word, and always chose the 
one most suitable to express his meaning, so that the profundity 
and dignity of his utterances were made thoroughly interesting 
and enjoyable by the appropriate language in which he clothed 
them. He was a rhetorician, an orator, and, what seems almost 
a lost art, he was an admirable reader. But these accomplish- 
ments were but the trappings of the sincere faith and Christlike 
spirit tliat breathed in every line and word that he uttered. If 
his prayers were always eloquent, it was because they were the 
simple pleadings of the child of grace, kneeling at his Father's 
feet, beseeching His favor. His help, and His protecting care. 
His daily life was a living epistle, ' known and read of all men,' 
of the beauty, symmetry, and power of our holy religion. In- 
deed, he came as near the perfect minister as any one I ever 
knew. 

With all this and through all, his deep humility and broad 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



13 



Christian charity made him lovely and beloved by all. Such a 
man never dies. He only leaves us — to live. The good that he 
does lives after him and for ever." 

The Eev. M, H. Houston, D.D., our Secretary of Foreign Mis- 
sions, writes of him : 

" In the removal of Dr. Pratt from among us we have lost one 
of the noblest, most generous and interesting men I ever knew. 
It was always a pleasure and privilege to me to be with him : 
he was always kind, always faithful as a friend, always in- 
structive and stimulating, and I loved him. He was a prince 
among preachers and among men, and the whole Church must 
mourn his departure." 

Dr. R. P. Farris speaks of him " as one of his dearest friends, 
a man who honored me with his confidence, a man in whom I 
could confide, whose naturalness I admired, whose high attain- 
ments I recognized and respected, whose grand preaching I en- 
joyed and boasted of." 

The Eev. Dr. Basil Manly, of the Baptist Church, the friend 
of his youth, wiites of him : " In the year 1837, at the reorgan- 
ization of the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, when my 
father became President of the University, the only personal re- 
quest he made of the Trustees was, to appoint the Rev. Horace 
S. Pratt, of Georgia, to be one of his colleagues. The intimacy 
and confidence already subsisting between them was only in- 
creased by their association in the work of the University. Their 
diverse characteristics and tendencies made each the complement 
of the other. It would sometimes be remarked, when Dr. Pratt 
had preached in the morning and Dr. Manly in the evening, 
that they had had first ' the feast of reason,' and then ^ the flow of 
soul.' Boy as I was at the time of Professor H. S. Pratt's death^ 
I was impressed by the fact that my father mourned over him 
as I do not remember his mourning over any similar bereave- 
ment ; and one of my most distinct recollections of those early 
days is the funeral sermon which he preached in honor of hi^ 
friend in the old capitol at Tuscaloosa, with the characteristic 
text, ^Alas, my brother.' The friendship of the parents was 
naturally inherited by John and myself as boys. Together in 
our plays, in our studies, in our plans and hopes, even occupying 
for a time the same room in college, we grew up in the utmost 
intimacy, notwithstanding he was a year or two my junior. And 



14 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



even subsequentlj to college life we spent the greater part of our 
time in the Theological Seminary together in the venerable 
shades of Princeton. From the time of leaving Princeton our 
lives necessarily drifted somewhat apart. Both of us have been 
busy men, deeply absorbed in important duties, and having little 
leisure for seeking social enjoyment outside of the immediate 
sphere of our labors. He soon became an honored and success- 
ful teacher, and occupied for years, under my father's presidency, 
the chair of English Literature which his father had filled, re- 
newing and continuing the intimacy of those earlier years of 
which I have spoken. Subsequently, during the presidency of 
Dr. L. C. Garland, Professor Pratt continued to give his valued 
services to the University, and did as much as any man of his 
time to train the rising generation of Alabamians for meeting 
nobly the responsibilities of life. His impress is felt still on 
hundreds of students there. Of the latter periods of his life 
others can speak better and more appropriately than I. My 
memory clings to the picture of the genial, venturesome, affec- 
tionate boy, who was the most cherished friend of my boyhood's 
days, of the young man in college and seminary who shared 
and lightened my labors by his presence, and of the grand and 
impressive preacher, who thundered forth the terrors of God's 
law, or urged with eloquent persuasiveness the invitations and 
comforts of the Gospel ; who made us forget ourselves, forget 
him, forget all our surroundings, and realize only the presence 
and authority of Almighty God, whose messenger he was. With 
a voice of remarkable clearness and force, a countenance that 
blazed with emotion while speaking, a delivery in which art had 
succeeded in concealing art, and nature spoke unimpeded ; and 
above all, with a compactness and energy of thought, and a sacred 
fidelity to the Divine Word, which commanded at once the intel- 
lects and the consciences of men, — he was emphatically and em- 
inently a Master of Assemblies. During the brief period of his 
afternoon services at the Music Hall in Cincinnati, the immense 
crowds which he attracted and held, and the profound im- 
pression produced, gave evidence of a power for popular effect 
which had hardly been suspected in the quiet and scholarly 
College Professor. I cannot but think it desirable that some of 
the choice discourses of such a preacher as he was should be pre- 
served in a permanent form, not only as a memorial of him most 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



15 



dear and appropriate to preserve his memory among the friends 
that loved him, but as a means of extending and perpetuating his 
work, and of enlarging his influence, so that 'he, being dead, 
may yet speak.' " 

These are the testimonies of men competent to appreciate the 
force, truth, and originality of Dr. Pratt's character and preach- 
ing. Yet if all the bereaved whose sorrows he consoled ; if all 
the poor and humble ones, who helpless to explain the mystery 
of his power, were joyfully able to draw peace from his word ; 
if all the souls whose doubts he drove back forever into the night 
from which they had come, and all the hearts whose indifference 
he melted, were to send up their tribute, it would be weightier 
by far, even than that of these thoughtful analysts of the secret of 
his success. 

His pastorate at Louisville ended his regular work. His health 
gave way under his heavy pastoral duties. He went to Europe 
with the hope of restoration, but in 1883 he resigned this, his 
last charge. Yet even then he continued to preach whenever 
and wherever he had opportunity : sometimes for a few 
weeks, and sometimes for a few months at a time, for he was 
resolved to give his whole life to the cause of Christ, and to die 
in harness. 

He died at his home in Louisville, Kentucky, March 24, 1888. 
There was no gloom in his sick-room, and we could not believe 
that death was really coming. When spoken to of dying, he 
said, " Why, I have no fear of death ; it has no terrors to me. 
I have fixed all that years ago, and if I had not, on this bed 
would be no place to do it." He talked of dying in the same 
natural way he would speak of any other act he expected to per- 
form. The evening before he died, in talking to a friend he 
said: It was such an inexpressible comfort to him now, when 
too weak to grasp any truth very stroDgly, to have these grand 
doctrines come unbidden to his mind. So long had his mind 
been stored with the consolations of Divine truth for the comfort- 
ing of other hearts that he now found them adequate for his own 
supply. Dr. Pratt was twice married. His first wife was Mary 
Grace Crabb, of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. She left two children — 
Grace Winthrop, now Mrs. Clay Stacker, of Clarksville, Tennes- 
see, and Edwin Alberti Pratt, of Louisville, Kentucky. His sec- 
ond wife was Maria Lindsay Waddell, of Lexington, Yirginia. 



16 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. ' 



She with two children, Harrj "Waddell and I>rettie "Wood Pratt, 
survive him. Of four sisters and one brother, onlj one sister is 
now living — Mrs. James W. Lapslej, of Alabama. 

Dr. Pratt was a man of marked characteristics, not always 
understood — and perhaps he did not care enough for that — but 
his intimate friends knew, appreciated, and loved him. He was 
a man of large and free-hearted benevolence. An instance de- 
serving record is that, after the emancipation of his slaves, he 
made generous provision for them, and some of them still enjoy 
that kindness, and will continue to do so while they live. All 
his former servants love and cherish him tenderly. In private 
life he presented the rare combination of a man full of common 
sense, eminently practical and systematic in all his business habits, 
and at the same time deeply absorbed in all the religious and 
literary work which engaged his thought and attention. He 
kept himself fully abreast of the times on all questions of interest 
before the public. With nothing of professional cant about him, 
he invited discussion on religious subjects with those who seldom 
met, and never sought the company of Christian people. There 
are tv^o particulars in which he was unlike many great preachers : 
first, as a Pastor he was a methodical and conscientious visitor 
of his flock ; and second, while his sermons were so grand and so 
grandly delivered, he by no means slighted the other parts of the 
public worship, but filled them all with beauty and power. He 
was a dear lover of sacred music, and showed great taste in the 
selection for the service of song. His Scripture-reading was 
equal to an eloquent commentary. But the prayer surpassed all. 
It was more than a sermon, simple, humble, reverent, earnest, 
comprehensive of all classes and topics, yet never tedious, but 
always refreshing and helpful to devotion. These were never in 
his view the mere preparatory services to the sermon, but were 
with him the solemn worship of God. He heard himself, and he 
strove to make his neople hear, "the stately steppings of Jehovah" 
in His sanctuary. 

The sermons which follow give a true idea, not of his delivery, 
which cannot be reproduced, but of the substance of his preach- 
ing. The reader of these sermons who never heard him preach 
can never be brought up to the vantage-ground on which they 
will read for whom every sentence will be informed and inter- 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



17 



preted by the memory of that matchless voice and irresistible 
delivery. He always preached the grand and profitable themes 
of the Gospel. This selection is made not to bring out his great- 
est efforts, but to present a comprehensive and systematic view 
of evangelical truth. 



Tuscaloosa, Alabama, 1888. 



CONTENTS. 



PASB 

I. — Given to Christ, or Election 25 

"All that the Father giveth me shall come to me ; and him 
that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. " — John vi. 37. 

II. — God's Sovereignty 39 

"The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice." — Psalm xcvii. 1. 
" The Lord reigneth ; let the people tremble." — Psalm xcix. 1. 

III. — Regeneration 50 

' ' Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a man be born again, 
he cannot see the kingdom of God." — John iii. 3. 

IV. — Faith 57 

"Precious faith."— 3 Peter i. 1. 

v.— Justification 65 

' ' Being justified by faith, we have peace with God." — Rom. v. 1. 

VI. — Conviction 72 

" I remembered God and was troubled." — Psalm Ixxvii. 3. 

VII. — Peace 82 

"Acquaint now thyseK with Him and be at peace." — Job 

xxii. 21. 

VIIL— Pardon 89 

" For Thy name's sake, O Lord, pardon mine iniquity; for it 
is great."— Psalm xxv. 11. 

IX.— Look and Live 97 

' 'And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so 
must the Son of Man be lifted up ; that whosoever believeth 
in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." — John 
iii. 14, 15. 

(19) 



20 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 



X. — Grace Eeigning 105 

' ' For sin shall not have dominion over you ; for ye are not 
under the law, but under Grace." — Romans vi. 14. 

XI. — True Freedom 117 

' ' If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall he free 
indeed."— John viii. 36. 

XII. — Light 131 

" Ye are the hght of the world." — Matthew v. 14. 

XIII. — Preparing an Ark 142 

' ' By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as 

yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his 
house ; by the which he condemned the world, and became 
heir of the righteousness which is by faith." — Hebrews xi. 7. 

XIV. — The Sabbath 155 

' ' l*he Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sab- 
bath."— Mark ii. 27. 

ZV.— What is Life ? 165 

"Man shall not live by bread alone." — Matthew iv. 4. 

XVI.— Fragments 180 

"Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost." 
—John vi. 12. 

XVIL— The Glory of God 189 

' ' Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do 
all to the glory of God."— 1 Corinthians x. 31. 

XVIII. — The World and the Soul 201 

' ' What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, 

and lose his own soul ? or what shall a man give in ex- 
change for his soul ? "—Mark viii. 36, 37. 

XIX. - Special Providence 210 

"And a certain man drew a bow at a venture, and smote the 

king of Israel between the joints of the harness."— 1 Kings 
xxii. 34. 

XX. — Influence 223 

' 'And that man perished not alone in his iniquity." — Joshua 

xxii. 20. 



CONTENTS. 21 

PAGE 

XXI. — Stewardship (A New- Year's Sermon) 238 

"Give an account of thy stewardship." — Luke xvi. 2. 

XXII. — Consolation 257 

"And the cup was found in Benjamin's sack." — Gen. xhv. 12. 

XXm. — Resurrection 265 

" The Power of His Resurrection." — Philippians iii. 10. 

XXIY.— Heaven 279 

' ' In my Father's house are many mansions : if it were not so, 



I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you." — 
John xiv. 2. 



Prayers 



296 



MOREOVER, WHOM HE DID PREDESTINATE, THEM HE 
ALSO CALLED : AND WHOM HE CALLED, THEM HE 
ALSO JUSTIFIED : AND WHOM HE JUSTIFIED, THEM 
HE ALSO GLORIFIED."— Rom. vm. 30. 



(23) 



I 



GIVEN TO CHRIST. 

" All that the Father giveth me shall come to me ; and him that cometh to 
me, I will in no wise cast out." — John vi. 37. 

It is a very general, but erroneous, belief that Calvinists get all 
their " hard " theology from the Apostle Paul. I would, there- 
fore, have you observe that the text is the language of our Lord 
himself. 

In it. He mentions a class of persons who seem to enlist His 
special affection. They are those whom God the Father had given 
Him. He mentions them again in the thirty-ninth verse of this 
chapter. " And this is the Father's will, which hath sent me, 
that of all which He hath given me, I should lose nothing, but 
should raise it up again at the last day." And, in the seventeenth 
chapter of this same Gospel, He refers to this same class five 
times, in the following words : That He should give eternal life 
to as many as Thou hast given Him"; "I ha ve> manifested Thy 
name unto the men which Thou gavest me out of the world ; 
Thine they were, and Thou gavest them me ; I pray not for the 
world, but for them which Thou hast given me "; " Those that 
Thou gavest me I have kept "; ^' Father, I will that they also 
whom Thou hast given me be with me where I am." And, in 
the tenth chapter of this same Gospel: "My sheep hear my 
voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give unto 
them eternal life ; and they shall never perish, neither shall any 
man pluck them out of my hand ; my Father which gave them 
me is greater than all." 

Now, here is a most interesting class of persons of whom our 
Lord is speaking. Let us see what can be said about this class on 
the authority of Christ himseK. 

(35) 



26 



GIVEN TO CHRIST. 



1. All that tlie Father giveth Him shall come to Him ; i. e., 
shall have faith in Him; for this is what coming to Christ 
means. 

2. Of all these, He should lose none, but would raise them up 
at the last day. 

3. He would give eternal life to as many as the Father had 
given Him. 

4. He would manifest the Father's name to them, and thej 
should keep His Word. 

5. Thej alone were the objects of His prayer to the Father. 
He expressly excludes the rest of the world. " I pray not for 
the world, but for themP 

6. They are " kept," so that none of them is lost. 

7. It was the will of Christ that they should be forever with 
Him to behold His glory. 

8. As His sheep, He knew each individual of the flock ; they 
hear His voice, and they follow Him, and they are safe in His 
care, so that no man can pluck them out of His hands. 

Thus, we see, in regard to this interesting class of men whom 
Christ describes as given to Him, that they have faith in Hirjii ; 
that they follow and obey Him ; that they are secure in the pos- 
session of eternal life ; that they will be raised in a glorious res- 
urrection at the last day ; and that they will be forever with 
Christ in heaven to see His glory. ]^ow, it is perfectly clear 
that all this can be said only of those who are saved through the 
atonement of Christ. These things cannot be said of any men 
except those who, having believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, have 
eternal Hfe. It follows, then, inevitably, that all those who are 
saved were, in some sense, given to Christ by God the Father. 
The only point that I insist on here is, that the description of 
those given to Him by the Father corresponds in every particular 
with what the Scriptures say in regard to those who are finally 
saved. The statement, you see, does not touch the question 
whether few, or many, or all are saved. It only asserts that all 
who are saved are designated by Christ as given to Him hy God 
the Father. If all men are at last saved, as the Universalist 
maintains, then all men were given to Christ. If only a portion 



GIVEN TO CHRIST. 



27 



of tlie race is saved, tlien that portion was, in some sense, given 
to Christ, The two classes, " the saved " and " the given to 
Christ^^ are exactly coterminous and identical, like two circles of 
the same diameter put one above the other. Whoever belongs 
to the one class belongs to the other. Whoever is excluded from 
the one class is excluded from the other. 

JN'ow, in regard to this class of persons, who may be indiffer- 
ently designated as " the saved. " or as " the given to Christ^'' 
there are some things that are self-evident. 

1. If they were given to Christ., it must have been as individ- 
uals that they were thus given, and not as a class. As men are 
not saved in masses as such, neither could they have been given 
to Christ in an indistinguishable mass. They must have been 
given to Him as individuals. This is made evident by the fact 
that He says : Jinow my sheejpP The figure is drawn from 
pastoral hfe. In Palestine, the shepherd was identified with his 
sheep far more than is the case in this country. He knew ail his 
sheep by sight, and each sheep had a name ; and when he called 
them by name, they knew him and recognized his voice. I^ow, 
although the shepherds of our country know their sheep by 
sight, and say there is as much difference in the faces of sheep as 
of men, they have not, as a rule, attained the art of teaching 
their sheep to recognize their names. But it is not so in the 
East. There the shepherds can call any particular sheep by 
name, and it will leave its pasturage and its companions and come 
to him. Hence, our Lord refers to a well-known fact when He 
says : " The sheep hear his voice, and he calleth his own sheep 
by name and leadeth them out." Then, immediately afterward, 
He says : " I am the good Shepherd and Jmow my sheejp^ and am 
hnown of mine^'' implying that He knows all those whom the 
Father hath given Him hy their names. 

2. But, if all those whom the Father gave Him were given to 
Him ly name, then it follows, of necessity, that this class must 
consist of a definite number. To conceive of an indefinite num- 
ber of names is an absurdity. The way in which we arrive at an 
enumeration of the men in an army, or in a congregation, or in 



28 



GIVEN TO CHRIST. 



a country, wlien the census is taken, is by setting down their 
names. As soon as the names were enrolled, we can fix the 
number exactly ; we know precisely how many are in the list. 
This is perfectly clear, so that I need not dwell on it a moment. 

3, Another thing seems to follow just here. If all men had 
been given to Christ by the Father, such careful specification 
of them by name would not have been necessary. If the whole 
race, without exception, had been included in the gift, it would 
have been enough to designate them simply by the generic title 
of men. But our Lord distinctly says that all men were not thus 
included in the paternal gift, for He says to the Jews : " Ye Re- 
lieve not^ hecause ye are not of my sheejp^'' and, in another place, 
He says : " I pray not for the world, but for them which Thou 
hast given me," clearly showing that all men were not included 
in this gift ; and, in another place, still more distinctly, He des- 
ignates them as ^Hhe men whom Thou gavest me out of the 
world^'' i. they were separated from the mass of mankind. 
ISTow, from the fact that those given to Christ out of the 
world are known by name, it follows, of necessity, that they 
must have been selected out of the mass of mankind. The only 
way in which it was possible to give to Him a definite number of 
individuals, whose names were known, was to call their names, 
one hy one. And this implies a selection — a passing by of others 
whose names were equally known to God, but whom He did not 
choose to give His Son from out of the world. 

Now, everything that I have said thus far is based directly on 
the very language of Christ himself. Let us, before we go a step 
farther, see what we have established. 

(lo) That Christ speaks of a body of men given Him by the 
Father, selected from out of the mass of men whom He calls 
" the %DorldP 

(2.) That this body of men given to Christ is identical with 
those who are saved^ inasmuch as the description given of them 
corresponds exactly with that elsewhere given of those whose 
names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. 

(3.) That they were given to Christ as individuals, and not as a 
class. 



GIVEN TO CHRIST. 



29 



(4.) That they were given to Him hy name, and that He knows 
the name of each. 

(5.) That the number of them must be definite. 

It is impossible to deny any one of these propositions if all 
. that Christ says abont those "given to Him by the Father" is 
kept in mind. 

I. And now the question arises, When loere these men given hy 
the Father to the Son f 

This is to be answered by referring to another name which 
our Lord applies to this class of men. We have seen that they 
are composed of those whom God selected from among the mass 
of mankind. ]^ow onr Lord calls this class of men His " elecf^ 
He speaks of the " elect whom God hath chosen." As there can 
be no other class of men in whom God delights except those 
whom He hath given to His Son, it is clear that the " elect whom 
He hath chosen" must be the very same men whom He hath 
given to Christ, l^o amount of ingenuity in the torturing of 
Scripture to suit a purpose can evade the conclusion that the 
" elect " of whom our Lord often makes mention are the same 
men selected by name and given to Him by the Father as " His 
sheep.^^ The elect, according to our Lord, are those for whose 
sake the days of trouble and darkness at the end of the world are 
to be shortened ; they are those whom, of all mankind, it will be 
impossible for false christs and false prophets to deceive ; they 
are those whom the angels are to gather together from the four 
winds and from the uttermost part of the earth at the day of 
judgment. It is clear, then, that they are the very same men 
whom God selected out of mankind to give to His Son, The 
question, when they were given to Him, is to be answered then 
by answering this question, "When were they selected or 
chosen ? " This question the other Scriptures answer in a hun- 
dred different forms. The elect were selected " before the foun- 
dation of the world "; i. e., from all eternity. Paul tells us all 
we can desire to know on this subject. He says, Eph. i. 4, that 
they were "chosen in Him before the foundation of the world"; 
and in another place he speaks of them as those whom God hath 



80 



GIVEN TO CHRIST. 



" chosen from the heginnmgP And the Apostle Jolin, in the 
Revelation, speaks of those whose "names are written in the 
Book of Life from the foundation of the world" (Rev. xvii. 
8). From these Scriptures we learn definitely that those whom 
the Father gave the Son were selected from among men before 
the foundation of the world. If they were selected from among 
men from all eternity in order to he given to Him, they were 
given to Him then, and promised as His inheritance then, heing 
then mentioned hy name. 

II. But God knew that these men, chosen out of the world, 
would be sinners exactly like those from among whom they were 
selected. 

On what ground, then, could a God of inflexible justice elect 
them to life and glory 1 The answer to this question brings to 
view what is known as the " Covenaot of Redemption." Ac- 
cording to this covenant, entered into between God the Father 
and God the Son, in the counsels of eternity, Christ engaged to 
take the place of all God's elect, and fulfil for them obedience 
to the law they had broken, and suffer for them the penalty 
which they had incurred. He becomes the Shepherd of His 
."flock through an express agreement made between Him and the 
.t'ather, by which, as a good Shepherd, He " lays down His life 
for His sheep." And now you will be able to understand that 
passage in the thirteenth of Hebrews : " Is'ow the God of peace 
that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great 
Shepherd of the sheep, through the Uood of the everlasting cove- 
nantP He became the Shepherd of the flock in virtue of a 
covenant ; and this covenant was sealed with blood ; and although 
His blood was not yet actually shed, yet its virtue was already 
recognized by God the Father ; for His engagement to shed His 
blood in the fullness of time was regarded by the Father the same 
as its actual shedding, and hence He is called a " Lamb slain from 
the foundation of the world." 

The purpose of election is very comprehensive. " It was the 
purpose of God to bring His people to holiness, to sonship, and 
to eternal glory. But He never intended to do this irrespective 



GIVEN TO CHRIST. 



31 



of Christ. On the contrary, it was His purpose, as revealed in 
Scripture, to bring His people to their exalted privileges through 
a Eedeemer. It was in Christ as their head and representative 
they were chosen to eternal life ; and, therefore, in virtue of 
what He covenanted to do in their behalf. There is, therefore, a 
federal union between Christ and His people — ^. e., a union aris- 
ing out of His covenant with the Father by which they become 
His sheep. His possession — which is antecedent to their actual 
union with Him, and which is the source of the actual union. 
God gave a people to His Son in this Covenant of Eedemption. 
Those included in that covenant, and hecause they are included 
in it — in other words, because they are in Christ, as their head 
and representative — receive in time aU the benefits of redemp- 
tion. Their subsequent voluntary union with Christ hj faith is 
not the ground of their federal union with Him, but, on the con- 
trary, ihQvc federal union is the ground of their voluntary union. 
It is, therefore, in Christ / i. e.^ as united to Him in the Cove- 
nant of Redemption that the people of God are elected to eternal 
life and to all the blessings therewith connected. Much in this 
same sense the Jews are said to have been chosen in Abraham. 
Their relation to Abraham and to God's covenant with him were 
the ground and reason of all the peculiar blessings they enjoyed. 
So their covenant union with Christ is the ground of all the ben- 
efits which the people of God possess or hope for. They were 
chosen in Christ as the Jews were chosen in Abraham^ — (Hodge.) 

Let us stop just here and recapitulate the propositions estab- 
lished, to wit : 

That there is a definite number of men, whose names have 
been written in the Lamb's Book of Life from the foundation of 
the world, whom God the Father gave to His Son, to constitute 
His flock, in an everlasting covenant, by the terms of which 
Christ engaged to take their place, and by the shedding of His 
blood redeem them from the punishment due to their sins ; and 
by thus taking their place He became their representative and 
federal head. As their representative. He receives promises for 
them, even the promise of eternal life, and claims for them, as 



32 



GIVEN TO CHRIST. 



riglitfullj belonging to Him, all the blessings pr^^mised in His 
Covenant with the Father. 

III. The question now arises, and it is perfectly pertinent : 
"Why should God the Father elect some of our race to these un- 
speakable blessings, and pass others by ? Why did He write 
certain names in the Lamb's Book of Life from the foundation 
of the world ? Why did He leave out of the list of the myriads 
who are saved, the names of thousands who are lost ? W^hy did 
He choose some and not all ? There can be no doubt of the fact 
that He did do it ; now why ? 

In reply to this question, I remark that we are to look for the 
reason, why God does one thing rather than another, to the same 
source of information from which we learn that He does it at all. 
In other words, there is no room for speculation on a subject 
which is a matter of pure revelation. God tells us why He did 
this thing of which we are speaking ; He elected some and passed 
others by, " according to the good pleasure of His will." He did 
it simply hecause He cJiose to do it^ and He does not see fit in 
His Word to give any other reason. Men have undertaken to 
vindicate the justice of God in the purpose of election on philo- 
sophical grounds. God himself does not seek thus to vindicate 
His own character. He claims the right of selection, and that 
without rendering any other reason than this : " / will have 
mercy on wJiom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion 
on whom I will have comjpassionP 

As in the case of Esau and Jacob, before either was born, or 
had done any good or evil, God said : " Jacob have I loved, but 
Esau have I hated " That the purpose of God according to elec- 
tion might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth"; just so 
in the case of those given to Christ, God prefers one to another, 
without any reference to the character which they will have after 
they are born. 

But some man will say, " This is a frightful doctrine." That 
depends upon circumstances. It is not frightful to the true peo- 
ple of God.'^ But no matter how the doctrine may be regarded 



* On the train from Cincinnati to Lexington, an old man took his seat be- 



GIVEN TO CHRIST. 



S3 



bj yon, here it is in the Bible. And the true Church of Christ 
in all ages has held this doctrine as one of the most precious in 
the Word of God. I shall not quote from our standard authors 
what they say on this subject, because you expect to find Presby- 
terian writers speaking strongly upon it ; I shall simply quote 
from the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church, just 
to show you what those who are usually supposed to hold all 
strong doctrine in its mildest form say in regard to election : 

" Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God, 
whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) He 
hath constantly decreed by His counsel, secret to us, to deliver 
from curse and damnation those whom He hath chosen in Christ 
out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting sal- 
vation as vessels made to honor." This is the statement of the 
doctrine. JSTow for the comment upon it. " As the godly con- 
sideration of Predestination, and our Election in Christ, is fnll 
of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persoiis, 
and such as feel in themselves the working of the Spirit of 
Christ, mortifying the works of the flesh and their earthly mem- 
bers, and drawing up their mind to high and heavenly things, as 
well because it does greatly establish and confirm their faith of 
eternal salvation to be enjoyed through Christ, as because it does 
fervently kindle their love toward God : So, for curious and 
carnal persons, lacking the Spirit of Christ, to have continually 
before their eyes the sentence of God's Predestination, is a most 
dangerous downfall, whereby the devil doth thrust them either 
into desperation, or into wretchedness of most unclean living, no 
less perilous than desperation." (Art. xvii.) 

lY. And now the questions which have given a great many 
very serious concern are : If the number of elect is fixed and 
definite ; if their very names have been recorded in a book 



side me. In the course of a long conversation! lie said : * ' Sir, if the doctrine 
of Election is eliminated from the Bible, you might as well blot out all Scrip- 
ture." He was unknown to me, nor did he know who I was. I afterward 
learned from him that he was a preacher in the Christian (Campbellite) 
Church. 



34 



GIVEN TO CHRIST. 



opened before tlie foundation of the world, how am I to know 
whether my name is among the number ? if it should happen not 
to be included among them, what is the use of my trying to secure 
salvation ? and if it is among them, why should I give myself any 
uneasiness on the subject ? To this I answer that the whole Kst 
of the elect is among " the secret things that belong unto the 
Lord our God." It is none of your concern who constitute the 
whole body of those given to Christ. " But those things which 
are revealed concerning them do belong to you and to your chil- 
dren forever." E^ow, the text reveals concerning the elect the 
only thing important for you to know. This is it, ^'All that the 
Father hath given me shall come to meP To come to Christ is 
only another form of statement for faith in Christ. This is a 
perfectly clear matter of revelation — that the moment a man 
beheves in Christ, that very moment it is proved, so far as he is 
concerned, that he is one of the elect. If you want to settle the 
question definitely * and prove that you are one of the elect, all 
you have to do is to accept Christ as your Saviour. Just come to 
Him, and the question of your being among the number of those 
" given to Him " is forever at rest. Here, you see, is the visible 
mark which Christ has fixed upon all who are chosen in Him ; 
they come to Him / and He adds the assurance, " Him that com- 
e-th to Me (the Greek is more encouraging than the English; 
''Him who is coming " — Him who is on his way to me), I will 
in no wise cast out." That is to say, if you ever come to Christ, 
you are secure in His hands ; for your coming only once proves 
that you are among the number given to Him, and He says : 
" Of all those that Thou hast given me I have lost noneP f Mark 

*^. 6., If you want to "make your calling and election sure "(2 Peter 1. 
10). On this passage Alford makes the following comment : 

" Both calling and election, in as far as we look on them from the lower 
side, not able to penetrate into the counsels of God, are insecure unless estab- 
lished by holiness of life. In Ris foreknowledge and purpose there is no in- 
security, no uncertainty ; but in our msion and apprehension of them as they 
exist in and for us, much, until they are made secure in the way here pointed 
out; for doing these things, 'if ye do these things, ye shall never fall 
(stumble).' " It is not to the real security of the elect that Peter has refer- 
ence, but to their own assurance of security. 

f "None of them is lost, but the son of perdition" (John xvii. 13). The 



GIVEN TO CHRIST. 



85 



the form of statement. He does not say, JVone are lost, though 
this is true, and He does say this in another place ; but, I have 
lost noneP As if He had said : " Their being kept in my hands 
is my work now, after they come to me. I hold them safe in my 
Almighty grasp. Mine they are, I hold them fast^ and no man 
is able to pluck them out of my hands." We may without irrev- 
erence fancy the great Kedeemer standing with the Book of Life 
in His hands, in which the names of those given Him have been 
written ; and, as one after another emerges from the mass of un- 
believers and professes faith in Him, we may imagine Him, as it 
were, checking off their names, and to the designation " elect of 
God," adding His " own new name^'' " saved and redeemed hy the 
hlood of my everlasting covenant^ So that the record will now 
stand, not only " elect of God^'' but '^justified ly faith^'' " to 
whom there is now no condemnation^ 

Y, ^Tow you are prepared to see how this doctrine is adapted 
and intended by God to console His people in their hours of 
spiritual darkness and despondency ; how in the language of the 
Episcopal symbol, which I have quoted, it is " full of sweet, 

mistake which Arminians make in regard to this passage consists in suppos- 
ing that this part of the verse contains an exception to what is declared in the 
words coming immediately before. A reference to the original will at once 
show their error. If "but" meant except, the Greek would read plen ton 
huiou, instead of " ei me ho huios." 

Compare with this passage Luke iv. 25 : "Many widows were in Israel in 
the days of Elias, but unto none of them was EHas sent save unto Sarepta, a 
city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow." Again, verse 27 : "Many 
lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus, the prophet ; and none of them 
was cleansed saving ISTaaman the S}Tian." Again, Revelation xxi, 27 : 
" There shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatso- 
ever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie ; but they which are written in the 
Lamb's book of Life." 

In each of these texts, the latter clause is not an exception to what is 
asserted in the former, but asserts a different fact. The following is plainly 
their meaning : " Many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, but unto 
none of them was Elias sent ; but (he was sent) to Sarepta, a city of Sidon, 
unto a woman that was a widow." " Many lepers were in Israel in the time 
of Eliseus, the prophet ; and none of them was cleansed, but ISTaaman the 
Syrian" (was cleansed). " There shall in no wise enter into it anything that 
defileth, etc., but they (shaU enter in) which are written in the Lamb's book 
of Life." 



36 



GIVEN TO CHRIST. 



pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons." For it is 
often the case that the true believer walks in great darkness. 
Sometimes such is the state of his health that he is overwhelmed 
with religious despondency ; or sometimes he is surprised into 
sin by Satan's getting the advantage of him ; and, judging of his 
state of grace by his own feelings, he fears that he is no child of 
God. Well, he can look back and remember that once in his life 
he did really and truly come to Christ. He can have no doubt 
about that fact in his experience ; he knows as well as he can 
know anything that once he did have real communion with his 
Redeemer. But now all is changed. He walks in darkness and 
sees no light. At such a time in his experience is it not a 
blessed thing to know that, although his feelings have changed, so 
that he has no sensible experience of divine love, Christ's love tc» 
him is unchangeable ? to know that, having once really come to 
Christ, he i^ surely among the number whom He will never cast 
out ? that " having loved His own which were in the world He 
loves them unto the end " ? to be persuaded that neither death, 
nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things 
present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other 
creature, shall be able to separate him from " Christ's love for 
him ? This is the triumphant reply which he can make to Satan 
when he would tempt him to despair. This is the rejoinder he 
can make to his own accusing conscience. With the assurance 
that no one can lay anything to the charge of God's elect " he 
can hurl defiance at hell and devils and all his accusers. God 
has justified him, and He who alone has the right to condemn 
him has died for him, and is at the right hand of God making 
present intercession for him. 

It is said by some that the preaching of this doctrine will en- 
courage men to sin, and lead to licentiousness. To this I have 
two answers to give, either of which by itself ought to be suffi- 
cient. 

First : Christ was not afraid of this result when He taught 
this doctrine. 

Second: I appeal to history. Do the men and the churches 
that hold this doctrine exhibit any laxity in their lives ? Was 



GIVEN TO CHRIST. 



37 



Paul a licentious, careless Christian ? was Luther ? was Calvin ? 
was the saintly Toplady, who wrote the hymn, " Eock of Ages, cleft 
for me " ? was John Knox ? or Bnnyan ? or Chalmers ? or Hall ? 
Or the men who heard their preaching and believed their doc- 
trines — were they men who continued in sin that grace might 
abound ? Is Calvinistic Scotland — where the covenant of grace 
and the eternal election of God's people are the key-notes to all 
the theology they learn and the preaching they hear — is Calvin- 
istio Scotland inhabited by a people who are distinguished by 
laxity of morals and looseness of life ? Oh, no ! It is too late 
in the history of the world to say that this doctrine leads to licen- 
tiousness ; for wherever it has been enshrined in the heart of a 
people's piety, there you find the most moral, grave and pious 
people on earth. Why, what is it that has impressed upon the 
people of the Yalley of Virginia characteristics, which make 
them a people peculiar for their hardy virtues, their indomitable 
courage, their purity of morals, their integrity of character? 
How are we to account for this homogeneousness in mrtuef 
Partly by the fact that this valley was peopled so generally by a 
race of men who hold in its entireness the great and impregnable 
system of doctrine, for which their ancestors, the " Men of the 
Covenant," shed their blood at Eothwell Bridge. Were the men 
with whom Stonewall Jackson ^ prayed before going into battle, 
the men of whom Jackson was the type and leader, the " patient 
infantry," behind whom Bee commanded his fleeing battalions to 
rally — were they men of dissolute or immoral hves? " Men do 
not gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles." My brethren, 
when these great doctrines shall lose their hold on the heart of 
the Presbyterian people of this country, you may write " Icha- 
bod " on their banners, for their glory wiU have departed. 

But this doctrine is not only a source of great peace and com- 
fort to the believer in his hours of spiritual darkness and deser- 
tion ; it is a panacea for all the ills of life. For it is a part of 
the doctrine that "all things work together for the good of 
those " who are the elect of God. It banishes the word calamity 



* This sermon was preached to the church in Lexington, Yirginia, in which 
Stonewall Jackson had been an elder. 



38 



GIVEN TO CHRIST, 



from their vocabulary. E'otliing can be to them a disaster. The 
fire, the storm, the earthquake, the pestilence, and the famine ; 
war, poverty, sickness, and death ; the loss of friends, the de- 
struction of property, although to the eye of sense they may 
seem evils, can be to them productive only of good. " All 
things work together for good to them that love God, to them who 
are the called according to His purpose." Nothing can really harm 
them. All holy angels are commissioned to be their ministering 
spirits : all devils are commanded, " Touch not mine anointed and 
do them no harm." All things are theirs ; the world, life, death, 
things present and things to come ; all are theirs, because they are 
Christ's and Christ is God's. Do you not see that the man who 
holds this truth in his heart is really superior to all the ills of 
life ? How is it possible to disturb the peace of that man who 
knows upon the authority of God that all the events of his life 
are ordered for his good, and that he himself is safe in the arms 
of Jesus ? How is it possible to make that man unhappy who 
persists in construing every dispensation of Providence as an evi- 
dence of the divine favor ? How can you ruffle the repose of a 
man whose faith is a talisman by which he transmutes everything 
into a blessing bestowed by paternal love ? Oh ! whatever else you 
relinquish, never give up your faith in this great doctrine which 
you receive direct from the Bible, and which your ancestors 
cherished with passionate devotion. Think of the loving-kind- 
ness of your God now in the midst of His temple. Walk about 
Zion, and go round about her, tell the towers thereof. Mark ye 
well her bulwarks ; consider her palaces ; that ye may tell it to 
the generation following. For this God is our God forever and 
ever : He will be our guide even unto death." 



II. 



GOD'S SOYEREIGJ^TY. 

"The Lord reigneth ; let the earth rejoice."— Ps. xcvii. 1. 
" The Lord reigneth ; let the people tremble."— Ps. xcix. 1. 

These two texts teach the same doctrine ; but from the doc- 
trine two opposite lessons are derived, — a fact which illustrates the 
principle that the same truth when looked at from different 
points of view, is adapted to produce very different effects in the 
mind of the beholder. 

The doctrine of these texts is the Sovereignty of God. In view 
of this Sovereignty the earth is called to rejoice and to fear. 

" The Lord reigneth ; let the earth rejoice " let the people 
tremble." 

I shall first explain the doctrine, and then show why it may be 
the occasion of joy and of fear. 

" The Lord reigneth " is an ascription of unlimited dominion 
to Jehovah. If there were one spot in the vast universe which 
is free from His control ; if there were but one atom floating in 
the far-off realms of space which is not pervaded by His presence 
and moved by His finger, it would be impossible to say with 
truth, " The Lord reigneth." This doctrine of absolute and uni- 
versal dominion of God is affirmed more explicitly in other pas- 
sages, which entering into minuter detail describe the empire of 
God as extending through every portion of the universe. 

I. What is the nature of this dominion ? Is it simply 2l physical 
control ? That is, does God, in the simple exercise of His omnip- 
otence, work His will only in things He has made ? Is it gen_ 
eral, or is it also special ? Does it extend to thoughts as well as 

(39) , 



40 



GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY. 



to things ? Does it embrace men and angels, as well as worlds 
and sidereal systems ? Is it a dominion of riglit only, or is it also 
a dominion of power ? That is, has God only a moral right to 
govern His universe ? or does He invariably secure the accom- 
plishment of His will ? 

When all these questions come to be answered by different 
schools of theology, you will find some disposed to deny some of 
the logical consequences of the general doctrine that the Lord 
reigneth. 

Without mentioning any of the erroneous views which men 
have advocated in reply to these and similar questions, I proceed 
to unfold the true Scriptural doctrine in regard to the Sovereign- 
ty of God. 

Two elements are contained in the Sovereignty of God : un- 
limited ^ower and absolute authority. 

The power of God is called His omnipotence — His strength to 
accomplish any of His purposes. His sovereignty includes not 
only this, but also His moral right to exercise His power. The 
first is, so to speak. His physical power ; the second is His moral 
power or authority. The distinction is intelligible, because 
it is one constantly recognized in human relationships between 
the governor and the governed. 'Now, as it is essential to the 
stability of every human government that power and authority 
shall be vested in the same person in order to constitute him as a 
sovereign ; so we must concede to God infinite power and abso- 
lute moral right, in order to conceive of Him as the sovereign of 
the universe. If power without right rules over a kingdom, we 
call it usurpation. If legitimate authority without power to en- 
force its claims undertakes to rule a kingdom, anarchy must fol- 
low. In the dominion of God, in which there can be neither 
usurpation nor anarchy. He sits sovereign in virtue of infinite 
power and absolute authority concentred in Him. 

A third element in the Sovereignty of God is evolved in 
answer to the question, " According to what law does God exer- 
cise His power and authority?" If God is controlled in the 
exercise of His power by any considerations that lie outside of 
Himself, the Psalmist could never have said : " The Lord reign- 



GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY. 



41 



etii." l^fow tlie Apostle Paul in so many words affirms tliat God 
works " all things after the counsel of His own will "; i. e., that 
He is self-determined. 

More specifically, the wo/'h of creation is ascribed to His sov- 
ereign pleasure. " Thou hast created all things, and for Thy 
pleasure they are and were created." ''The Lord made all 
things for Himself." So also the work of redemption and the 
publication of the Gospel into the world, are ascribed to the same 
motive; as the Apostle tells us in the Epistle to the Ephesians: 
" Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus 
Christ according to the good pleasure of His will "; '^ having made 
known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good 
pleasure which He purposed in Himself." 

He created the world just because He chose to create it ; He 
preserves it just because He chooses to preserve it ; and He re- 
deems His people just because He chooses to redeem them. " For 
of Him, and by Him, and through Him are all things." 

The Sovereignty of God, then, consists in His infinite power 
and right to execute a will determined solely by His good 
pleasure. 

II. Who and what are the subjects of God's dominion ? The 
Scriptures say " all things." Does this mean only the material 
universe, or does it include rational creatm-es ? The Scriptures 
are full of assertions of God's control as reaching to all the 
creatures He has made. If this is so, of course His dominion 
extends over the whole race of men, over all angels and over all 
worlds. 

!N'ow, while it is easy enough to believe that all physical nature 
is under His supreme control, so that He orders the movements 
of every atom and the revolution of every orb, some minds find 
it very hard to understand His sovereignty in reference to man. 
The difiiculty may be stated thus. Inanimate nature is pass- 
ive, incapable of resisting the plastic hand of its maker. But in 
creating man, God made a being endowed with a free will of his 
own ; and when this free being fell from his first estate, in which 
his will was always coincident with the Divine will, he, retaining 



42 



GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY. 



his freedom of will, instead of delighting to do the will of God, 
now dehghts in frustrating it and refusing to obey it. Thus it 
would seem that by endowing man with free agency, God has 
conferred upon the creature the power of limiting His absolute 
sovereignty — first, by doing what is contrary to His will ; and 
secondly, by refusing to do what He enjoins. If it is true that 
men in the exercise of their free agency can frustrate the Divine 
will, then whatever may be God's authority, He cannot secure 
the accomplishment of all His will. He has made a machine 
that has gotten away from Him so that He cannot control it. 

Now, although this is a very difficult problem, one that has 
never been solved, I ask your attention to the following consider- 
ations, which, although they do not solve the problem, may lead 
you to believe the doctrine of God's absolute sovereignty over 
the free wills of His creatures. 

1. If you deny this doctrine, you are compelled to deny the 
explicit statements of God's Word. " He turneth the king's heart 
as the rivers of water are turned." " It is God that worketh in 
you, both to will and to do of His own good pleasure." 

2. To deny the free agency of man is equally opposed to 
Scripture and to the consciousness of the whole human race, l^o 
amount of argument to the contrary could convince any human 
being that in all his conduct he does not act freely. 

3. But why should men believe the latter proposition and 
reject the former ? When both truths are taught in the Word 
of God, and stand on the same authority, why not receive them 
both as true ? 

The doubter is ready with the answer. He cannot see how 
these propositions can be made to agree with each other. 

I have somewhere read that among the many wonderful en- 
dowments of N"apoleon Bonaparte, he possessed an extraordinary 
power of vision, so that he could discern objects that were visible 
to ordinary eyes only with the aid of the telescope. On one 
occasion, while discussing with his marshals the plan of a cam- 
paign from which he expected most brilliant results, they con- 
fessed themselves unable to see how his plans could be executed. 
He stepped to the window, and pointing to the planet Jupiter, he 



GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY. 



43 



said, " Do yon see the four satellites of that planet ? " " ITo," 
they replied. " Bnt," said he, " I see them." Thus it is with 
us short-sighted men. God reveals truths in His Word which 
we find it hard to reconcile; and in opposition to the clearest 
teachings of His Word, we dare to doubt, because we, the pigmy 
insects of a moment, cannot see how they can be made to har- 
monize. It may be our duty to believe some things that we can- 
not see. Since God has said so, it is one's duty to believe that 
He is a Sovereign and man a free agent, although we cannot see 
how these thino;s consist with each other. His thouo^hts are not 
as our thoughts. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so 
are His thoughts higher than our thoughts. 

III. The Sovereignty of God being clearly taught in Scripture, 
the question is pertinent, How does God manifest or exhibit it ? 
I answer — 

1. By the giving of a Law, (xod claims to be a great king : 
and by giving the law to all His creatures without any exception. 
He proclaims Himself a universal King — King of kings. 

2. The arbitrary character of some of God's laws is a claim of 
sovereign authority. Some of God's laws are founded in the 
nature of things ; such, for example, as the obligation to love 
Him and to worship Him, and to love our fellow-men and to do 
them no harm ; but there are others which have no such natural 
congruity, and are founded on no other ground than that so He 
wills it. The prohibition to Adam to eat of the fruit of a certain 
tree, the law of the Sabbath, the JcAvish ceremonial law, were 
arbitrary in their nature, and were striking exhibitions of God's 
sovereignty. 

3. The abrogation of some of the laws He has given ; e. g.^ 
the revoking of the ceremonial law, or the change in the method 
of His dealing with mankind by the substitution of the Covenant 
of Grace for the Covenant of Works, is one of the highest dis- 
plays of His Sovereignty. 

4. God manifests His Sovereignty by punishing every trans- 
gression of His law. In human governments some criminals 
escape punishment. This is a sign of a weak government. But 



GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY. 



in the Divine government all sin is punished ; and this proves it 
to be infinite and absolute. 

5. God manifests His Sovereignty in His Providential govern- 
ment of men. Why does He make one rich and another poor ; 
one robust, another invalid ; one white, another black ; one free 
and another a slave ; one wise and another foolish ; one an Amer- 
ican and another a Hottentot ? "Why does He give you the Gos- 
pel and withhold it from the Bushmen ? Are you any better by 
nature than the uncivilized heathen ? Why then ? Simply be- 
cause He is a Sovereign and does whatsoever He chooses. All 
the inequalities among men and among nations, all calamities and 
all prosperity, all promotion and all dishonor, all the vicissitudes 
of human life, must be referred to the " good pleasure " of God, 
ar.d are exhibitions of His Sovereignty. 

6. The Sovereignty of God was most conspicuously displayed in 
Bis sending His Son into the world for the salvation of sinners. 
Nobody will dare affirm that God was compelled to do this. He 
might, if He had chosen, have left us to perish in our sins. Or 
if we suppose that something in the character of God or in the 
claims of the Divine glory made it necessary for Him to make 
some illustrious display to the intelligent universe of His mercy, 
"why did He select fallen men instead of fallen angels as the 
objects of His mercy ? Herein was a striking exhibition of His 
sovereign good pleasure. 

T. The Sovereignty of God is manifested in the fact that only 
some men are chosen to be saved in Christ, while others are suf- 
fered to perish. This predestination of some men to eternal life 
is the most distinguished manifestation of the Sovereignty of 
God. Just here I fancy I hear an objector lift up his voice in 
protest. He says, I do not deny the general doctrine of God's 
Sovereignty ; but I must dissent from this particular aspect in 
which you now present it." In short, he holds to God's Sover- 
eignty in everything but the matter of man's salvation. He can- 
not see how sovereignty in election can be reconciled with God's 
impartiality. Neither do we. I agree with him at once. I admit 
that for God to choose from among guilty beings, all equally ill- 
deserving, some to everlasting life, while He passes others by, is a 



GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY. 



45 



striking exhibition of partiality / and I claim for God, as sov- 
ereign, the right to he partial. "But," says the objector, con- 
sulting the dictionary, " partiality is a preference springing from 
the will and affections rather than from a sense of justice P Pre- 
cisely so. The election of God's people is an act of preference 
springing from His own will and from His own good pleasure, 
without any reference to the claims of justice, which concludes 
all alike under condemnation. " But then," says the objector, 
" this discrimination is unjust." To this I reply. It would be 
unjust in a judge, but not in a sovereign. A judge could not 
condemn one criminal while he suffered another equally guilty to 
escape. But this very thing a sovereign may do, and does, with- 
out being called in question. And so may God, the great Sover- 
eign, choose some whom He intends to save, while He leaves 
others to their just condemnation. " But then," says the ob- 
jector, " the ends of justice are defeated if only one offender 
goes free." True, the ends of justice would be defeated if any 
solitary transgression of the law of God goes unpunished. How, 
then, does God vindicate His justice, while He thus exercises 
His sovereignty ? I answer. By providing an atonement, a sacri- 
fice, a fulfiller of the law, both as to its precepts and penalty, to 
stand in place of His elect ones, in the person of Jesus Christ 
our Lord. When God as Sovereign elected some unto life. He 
did not forget His character as judge ; the solemn demands of 
justice were too sacred for even Him, the Sovereign, to set the 
law aside, (as is done in every act of executive clemency among 
men) ; He still required that the penalty of His law should be 
paid, if not by the guilty themselves, in the person of His own 
dear Son. And thus the Sovereignty of God is further illustrated 
by His setting aside the old covenant of works, the terms of 
which were, " Do this and live," and putting in its stead the cov- 
enant of grace, the terms of which are, " Believe on Christ and 
live." 

Thus, you see, God, as Sovereign, chooses from among guilty 
men some whom He has determined to save ; as Sovereign, 
changes the covenant of works for a covenant of grace, (by which 
arrangement alone the salvation of any can be made possible), in 



46 



GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY, 



order that He may save His elect ones ; as Sovereign, accepts the 
work of Christ in their behalf in place of their obedience and 
punishment ; and then, as Judge^ justifies all who believe in 
Jesus ; — thus showing to all men and all angels and all devils how 
God the Judge may be just and yet a justifier of the ungodly. 
And now, " Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect ? " 
God has justified them. " Yf ho is he that condemneth ? " But the 
objector answers, " There is no dispute between us as to the ground 
of sinners' justification ; but we differ as to the ground of God's 
election of the sinner to justification." The objector is bound to 
admit that the Scriptures speak of an election ; but he says God 
elects men because He foresees that some will believe on Christ 
and become holy, while others will reject Christ and remain im- 
penitent. This is a very plausible and very intelligible explana- 
tion of the matter ; but it is liable to the fatal objection that there 
is not one line of Scripture to support it, and numberless Scrip- 
tures that deny it. The Scriptures have a great deal to say about 
faith as the result of election ; of holiness as the consequence of 
election ; but never in a single instance of the relation as re- 
versed. The same thing cannot be the cause and the effect of 
some other thing. Faith and holiness cannot be the foreseen 
cause of our election by God and the result of that election. The 
one surely must precede the other. And when the Scriptures 
say, " According as He hath chosen us in Christ before the foun- 
dation of the world in order that we should be holy," they can- 
not mean that He has chosen us hecause He foresaw that we 
would be holy. If this was what the Apostle meant, why did he 
not say so? Why does he everywhere say just the opposite? 
Why does he say, " hath predestinated us that we should be holy," 
that we should be conformed to the image of His Son," that 
we should be to the praise of His glory" ? Why does he, guarding 
against this very error, say, " not of works, lest any man sJiould 
boast," " that the purpose of God according to election might 
stand, not of works, but of Him that calleth " ? What does the 
Apostle mean when he says, " Whom He did foreknow, He also 
did predestinate to he conformed to the image of His Son "; 
" Moreover, whom He did predestinate, them He also called, and 



GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY, 



47 



whom He called, them He also justified ; and whom He justified, 
them He also glorified " ? Is the dayhght the cause of the sun ? 
or is the sun the cause of daylight ? Kow faith and holiness are 
the result of election, just as day is the result of the rising sun. 

The objector now shifts his ground and says : But faith and 
good works are the conditions of salvation, and God certainly 
saves some and condemns others, because some beheve and others 
do not." To this I reply. True, but why do some believe and 
others reject Christ ? He will reply : " Because God not only 
gives the means of grace, but accompanies them by the efiiciency 
of His Spirit." I press the question : " But why does He give 
the influences of His Spirit to some and not to all 'I " He will 
reply : " Because He has decreed by grace to prepare men for 
glory." But why decree to prepare some and not all ? And he 
must at last admit that it is all because of God's good pleasure ; 
and if at last driven to the wall, he is still ready to rebel against 
the sovereignty of God, I can go no farther in argument, but 
must adopt the language of Paul in his argument with this very 
objector and say : " JSTay, but oh ! man, who art thou that repli- 
est against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that 
formed it. Why hast thou made me thus ? Hath not the potter 
power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto 
honor, and another unto dishonor ? " Oh ! my hearer ! it is only 
in moments of rebellion against God that men do thus reply 
against Him. We know with the certainty of intuition that we 
are as clay in the hands of the potter, and when we ask, Why 
was I made the subject of converting grace? Why did the 
Spirit strive with me and not with them ? your hearts will ac- 
knowledge the Sovereignty of God, and you will say : " Because 
He hath mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will 
He hardeneth." And when you sit at the table of the Lord, you 
must sometimes inquire ; 

Lord, why am I a guest ? 

Why was I made to hear Thy voice 

And enter while there's room, 

While thousands make a wretched choice, 

And rather starve than come ? " 

And your hearts must respond : 



48 



GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY. 



<« 'Twas the same love that spread the feast 
That sweetly forced us in ; 
Else we had still refused to taste, 
And perished in our sin." 

Yes ! it is all of sovereign grace. " It is not of him that will- 
eth nor of him that runneth ; but of God that showeth mercj." 
And therefore in the salvation of men, God makes the most 
signal display of His Sovereignty. 

lY. I have left but little time for showing why the Sovereignty 
of God should be the occasion of rejoicing to His people and of 
trembling to His enemies. In conclusion i remark that God's 
Sovereignty should make us rejoice, because it is exercised in per- 
fect harmony with infinite goodness, wisdom, and love. Amidst 
our perplexities, cares, sorrows, disappointments, and bereave- 
ments, how sustaining, how exhilarating the reflection that the 
Lord reigneth ! In the dark days of the Reformation, Luther 
stayed his soul on this great doctrine. He said : " The Lord 
reigneth, and I know He loves His Church better than I love it ; 
and why should I fear that He will not take care of it ? All tlie 
dispensations of God's providence and grace are only so many 
straightforward steps to the accomplishment of good for us. 
Like the wheels and bands in a great machine, some of which are 
turning one way, some another ; some going up and some going 
down, yet all contributing to produce the perfect result ; so all 
things in the great machinery of Providence are co-operating to 
accomplish God's purposes of good to His people. What a 
source of rejoicing to know that He reigns over all ! " 

Some of you do rejoice that you have such a Sovereign. But 
I fear there are some here who are sajnng, I do not like this doc- 
trine. It presents God in such a terrible aspect to me, that in- 
stead of winning my love, it makes me hate God. Well, you 
know the Apostle says : " The carnal mind is enmity against 
God." If this is the effect of the doctrine on your heart, it only 
proves that you have that carnal mind that hates the God of the 
Bible. If the doctrine of God's Sovereignty is terrible to you, 
don't you see that this proves the doctrine true ? for the Psalmist 
says: "The Lord reigneth, let the people trembled "Ah!" 
you say, " we could rejoice in the Sovereignty of God, if we were 



GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY. 



49 



only good ; but we are wicked ; and as siicli we cannot delight 
in the thonoht that we are in the hands of a sovereio^n God." 
TTell, then, why remain wicked ? Why not be good ? Why not 
make friends with this Almighty Sovereign ? Why not lay hold 
upon His strength, and be at peace with Him ? 

I appreciate the full force of the reply which I know is in 
your minds. Ton are saying. How can we change onr hearts 
and love God, and accept Jesus Christ as onr Saviunr, if it is true, 
as you just now told us, that God sovereignly bestows the grace 
of faith, and that it is not of him that willeth nor of him that 
runneth, but of God that showeth mercy ? Well, my dear friend, 
I cannot help it ; I cannot help you out of the terrible diffi- 
culty, and it is for this very reason that you are helpless in the 
hands of a sovereign God, that you have need to tremble. Your 
only help is to be found in God himself. If you will only bow 
before His Sovereignty, and, like the publican, cast yourself on 
His mercy. He will graciously incline His ear to you and grant 
you His converting grace that your soul may live. Shall I give 
you the words wherewith you may approach Him in prayer?. 
Come to Him with language like this : 

Pass me not, 0 gracious Father, 

Sinful though my heart may be ; 
Thou might'st cui'se me, but the rather 

Let Thy mercy hght on me, 
Even me. 

Pass me not, O tender Saviour, 

Let me love and cling to Thee ; 
I am longing for Thy favor. 

When Thou comest, call for me, 
Even me. 

Pass me not, 0 mighty Spirit, 

Thou canst make the blind to see ; 
Witnesser of Jesus' merit, 

Speak the word of power to me, 
Even me. 

Love of God, so pure and changeless, 

Blood of God, so rich and free, 
Grace of God, so strong and boundless^ 

Magnify them all in me, 
Even me. 



III. 



EEGENEEATIOK 

Verily, verily, I say unto thee. Except a man be born again, lie cannot see 
the kingdom of God."— John iii. 3. 

Theke is a wonderful harmony between all the doctrines of a 
sound system of theology. It is no insignificant proof of the 
truth of any science that all its doctrines are consistent with each 
other, and cohere in one compact harmonious whole. The 
Scriptures contain religious truths, which being arranged in scien- 
tific form, constitute what is called a system of theology. If any 
one of these great truths or doctrines is omitted, the whole 
system falls to pieces, just as an arch tumbles down if one of the 
bricks is taken out. 

The text contains one of the great truths which is essential to 
any correct theory of the plan of redemption, — viz. : the 
necessity of the " new birth." But this doctrine would be utter- 
ly unintelligible and incredible were it not that we learn from 
the Scriptures another doctrine — viz. : the depravity of the whole 
human race. Deny this doctrine, and the doctrine of the neces- 
sity of regeneration, or being born again, is an absurdity. Hence 
those who teach that infants are born innocent and perfect, and 
fall into sin simply through the force of example, are perfectly 
consistent in teaching that the new birth of which the text 
speaks is simply a reformation of life and habit. Those who 
teach this error hold that this result is brought about by " moral 
suasion i. a persuading of the sinner to abandon the error of 
his way. 

I should despair of convincing any man that he must be born 
again in order to see the kingdom of God, who is not persuaded 
(50) 



REGENERATION. 



51 



of the total depravity of human nature. I shall not undertake 
to show that this is the doctrine of the Bible. David says : " Be- 
hold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive 
me." " The wicked are estranged from the womb ; they go 
astray as soon as they be born." The doctrine pervades the 
whole Bible. It is one of the constructive ideas of inspiration, 
which are not so much here, or there, as everywhere. It is like 
the blood in the human body. Draw it out of the system and you 
may as well bury the system in the grave. The doctrine rever- 
berates from the first chapter in Genesis to the last in the Reve- 
lation. Expunge it, and you may as well vacate the office of the 
Holy Ghost in the work of man's redemption. 

If any holy being were asked, what is the distinctive character- 
istic of man ? his answer would be, " Sin." It is not weakness, 
it is not misfortune, it is not suffering, it is not death ; it is sin. 
And indeed, if there is one truth on which the mind of the whole 
human race is agreed, it is the fact of depravity and sin, and the 
necessity of a radical change in his nature to fit man for the pres- 
ence of God. 

Assuming as conceded the depravity of all men without excep- 
tion, I desire now to enforce the doctriue of the text. 

What is regeneration ? It is a work done in a man by the 
Spirit of God. It differs from justification in this, that the latter 
is done only/br a man, and changes his state in relation to God's 
law. Regeneration is not a change in relations, but a change in 
the man himself ; it gives him a new character. 

As the change is in the soul, and not in the body, it is per- 
fectly clear that no mechanical operation performed on the body 
can produce this change. Many persons have a vague idea that 
in some mysterious way baptism can secure this result. But our 
Lord distinctly teaches that a man must be born of " water cmd 
the Spirit." 

There is one aspect of this truth which is of great practical 
value. Let me illustrate it by the case of the converted drunk- 
ard. Before his conversion he was the victim of two diseases : 
one a corrupt and depraved heart ; the other, a disordered bodily 
condition, brought about by long intemperate indulgence. Now 



52 



REGENERATION, 



when tlie Spirit of God entered his soul and changed his spiritual 
nature, this mightj work did not cure his diseased body. He has 
the same insatiable longings for the intoxicating bowl which he 
had before his conversion. If now, bj the grace of God, he has 
the strength to persevere in habits of sobriety, his body will in 
the end regain its healthful tone, and he will become a sober 
man. But the cure of the nervous disorder is not the direct work 
of the Spirit ; it is the result of his being " strengthened with all 
might by the Spirit in the inner man." If, however, at any 
time the nervous disorder should again conquer the regenerate 
nature, and the man should be overtaken in his old fault, this is 
no decisive proof that he is not a true child of God. I make 
this remark not to encourage any one to dally with temptation, but 
to encourage any who may have fallen back into a viciou» 
habit from which he once was rescued, and who now fears that 
God has cut him off, to rise up again and with humble reliance 
on Divine grace to fight his old enemy. 

Again, regeneration does not change the faculties or suscepti 
bilities of the soul. The man loves, desires, hopes, fears, rejoices, 
grieves, proposes, and wills just the same as before his change of 
heart : but these emotions, passions, and purposes are now fixed 
on new objects. Hence, the Apostle says to the Thessalonians : 
" The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God." They had 
been worshippers of idols and they had " turned to God from 
idols to serve the Hving and true God." The act of worship was 
the same, but it was now directed to God. 

In reply, therefore, to the question : "What is regeneration ? I 
say that it is a real, mighty, miraculous renovation of the soul by 
the direct agency of the Spirit of God, which reverses the whole 
current and bent of the affections, desires, and purposes, so that 
the man who experiences it may say, ' Old things have passed 
away ; behold, all things have become new." 

The text declares that without this change no man can see the 
kingdom of God. There are only two destinations in the great 
future which awaits you beyond the grave. Exclusion from the 
kingdom of God implies inclusion in the kingdom of Satan. " Ex- 
cept a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." 



REGENERATION. 



53 



I think the reason why the fulfilment of this condition is indis- 
pensable can be made apparent to any reasonable mind. 

1. Admittance into heaven is an immediate introduction into 
the presence of the Holy One, to hold familiar intercourse with 
Him, to attend upon His court, and to serve Him continually. 
To be qualified for this near and intimate association with Him 
who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, the man must be 
not only a pardoned sinner, but must be personally holy in char- 
acter, presenting nothing offensive to the eye of the divine holi- 
ness. Hence David says, " Lord, who shall abide in Thy taber- 
nacle ? Who shall dwell in Thy holy hill ? He that hath clean 
hands and a pure heart." " For Thou art not a God that hath 
pleasure in wickedness ; neither shall evil dwell with Thee ; the 
foohsh shall not stand in Thy sight." The Apostle says that 
" the carnal heart," that is, the unregenerate man, " is enmity 
against God, and is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed 
can be." Think of the manifest incongruity of the Divine Being 
surrounding His throne with those who hate Him and despise 
His government, and you will readily admit that " except a man 
be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." " Holiness 
becometh Thy house, O Lord, forever"; "and there shall in 
no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever 
worketh abomination, or maketh a lie." 

2. But we are forced to the same conclusion by considering 
the character of the unregenerate man and the character of the 
society in heaven. The kingdom of God is peopled by perfectly 
holy beings. Their constant occupations are such as are congenial 
to pure and holy spirits. An unregenerate man is not a fit asso- 
ciate for those holy intelligences that stand around the throne. 
Let me illustrate. Here is a family reared amid the kindliest 
influences. It is composed of a father, who is the type of every- 
thing noble, refined, and elevated ; a mother, the model of all 
that is pure and beautiful in woman ; daughters that are lovely 
beyond their sex, just budding into womanhood, and sons who 
have been kept unspotted from the world. 

On the other hand, here is a base, corrupt, unprincipled liber- 
tine ; a man without education, culture, or refinement ; with low 



54 



REGENERATION, 



tastes and depraved appetites. J^ow, why is he excluded from 
this family circle ? Manifestly, because he is not a fit associate 
for the elevated and good. Why does he not desire or seek to 
enter there ? Simply because he has no taste for the society he 
would meet within the precincts of that Christian home. Why 
would he be miserable if compelled to enter that household as an 
inmate, and engage in the employments of its members ? Simply 
because he could take no pleasure in the pursuits that engage the 
refined, the elevated, and the good. 

IN'ow heaven is a holy place, and those who dwell there delight 
in holiness. The angels are " holy angels." Glorified saints are 
said to be as the angels of God in heaven. Is an unrenewed, de- 
praved man a fit associate for them ? Would they not turn their 
backs on him, and, fleeing from his presence, leave him in the 
solitude of his own vileness ? 

These holy angels and spirits of just men made perfect are 
constantly engaged in acts of adoration, in studying the perfec- 
tions of God, in the exercise and expression of supreme love to 
God, in the vocal utterance of His praises. How can a man 
whose heart is unholy engage in these services ? If he does not 
delight to do the will of God here, will he delight to do it there ? 
If he does not take pleasure in the study of God here, will he 
take any more pleasure in the study of His perfections there ? 
If his language now is, " Depart from me, for I desire not the 
knowledge of thy ways," can such a temper be fit for heaven, 
where nothing but thoughts of God will fill the minds of glori- 
fied spirits ? Then, again, how can he engage in the worship 
which constitutes so large a part of the employment of saints and 
angels ? What is the angels' song ? " Holy ! holy ! holy ! Lord 
God of Hosts." Can the corrupt, depraved man join in this 
chorus ? What is the song of the saints ? " Hallelujah ! Salva- 
tion, and glory, and honor, and power unto the Lord our God ! 
Hallelujah ! For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." How 
can the heart that hates God echo this hallelujah ? The tongue 
can never be tuned to praise while the heart is evil. God must 
be glorified in us before He can be glorified by us. 

Don't you see that the unrenewed man would be miserable in 



REGENERATION. 



55 



heaven if forced to enter there ? Is he not unhappy in the so- 
ciety of the pure and holy here on earth ? Why should he be 
happy in their society hereafter ? Is not the occupation of the 
pious a weariness to him here ? Why should it be any more 
agreeable to him there ? Is not the Sabbath as a day of holy 
rest an object of aversion to him ? How then will he delight in 
the eternal Sabbath ? He would be miserable in heaven ; for 
heaven consists in nearness to God and in the beatific visions 
of His Son. Could he delight in nearness to God who all his 
life has lived without God, or be happy in looking upon Jesus 
Christ who all his life turned his back on Christ ? No ! no ! He 
would be wretched in heaven. Chain him to the foot of the 
Eternal Throne, and he would cower beneath the gaze of the 
Holy One. Bind him with fetters to the very right hand of 
Him in whose presence is fullness of joy and pleasures for ever- 
more, and he would shriek in agony and call on rocks and moun- 
tains to fall on him and hide him from the face of Him that 
sitteth on the throne. That burning eye which looks on sin with 
abhorrence would blanch his cheek with terror ; that awful frown 
would kindle hell in his bosom, and he would pray to be released 
from imprisonment in the presence of a holy God, that he 
might flee from the brightness of His glory as darkness flees be- 
fore the rising sun. " Yerily, verily, I say unto you. Except a 
man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." 

One thought more and I have done. Hell is a place of misery. 
And one of the bitterest drops in the cup of woe is, that, while 
the lost soul longs after the enjoyment of sensual delights, there 
will be a total privation of them. Heaven is the perfect grati- 
fication of holy tastes which have begun to be cultivated on earth. 
Does the drunkard expect that heaven will aJfford him the ex- 
citement of the intoxicating cup ; or the libertine that it will be 
a Mohammedan paradise ; or the covetous man that it will be a 
place for him to buy and sell and get gain ? Certainly not. Yet 
they all hope in some way to be finally happy. But happiness 
consists in the satisfaction of the desires and appetites, in the 
gratification of the tastes and propensities of the soul. They 
know full well that heaven cannot gratify these sensual and 



56 



REGERERATION. 



sordid tastes and desires. Is it not true that even those who do 
not admit the necessity of regeneration do in fact expect in some 
mysterious way to be so changed at death that heaven will be a 
place of happiness even for them ? And what is this expec- 
tation but an unconscious affirmation of the doctrine of the text, 
" Ye must be born again " ? Ye must be changed in your tastes, 
desires, and character before ye can enjoy the kingdom of God. 
Oh ! my hearer, abandon the unfounded hope that at death you 
will undergo any such change as will make you " meet to be a 
partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light." There is no 
sanctifying power in death. " As the tree falleth, so shall it lie." 
" He that is unjust will be unjust still ; he that is filthy will be 
filthy still ; he that is righteous will be righteous still ; and he 
that is holy will be holy still." If you would see the kingdom 
of God you must be born again this side of the grave ; for " ex- 
cept a man (a man, not a disembodied spirit,) be born again, he 
cannot see the kingdom of God." 



IV. 



FAITH. 

''Precious faith."— 2 Pet. i. 1. 

In tliis discourse I shall answer two questions ; 
First, What is Faith? 

Second, Why does the Apostle call it precious ? 

I. The word faith is used in several distinct senses in the 
Scriptures. Sometimes, it means simple assent to the truth of 
the Bible ; sometimes, a temporary impression in regard to God 
and His love ; sometimes, the power to work miracles ; while 
" thefaitJi " means the whole summary of Christian doctrine. 

The text has reference to none of these, but to that specific act 
of the soul by wliich a sinner is justified at the bar of God on 
the ground of the righteousness of Christ imputed to him, and 
which to distinguish it from all other acts of the soul, is called 
" saving faith." 

1. Saving faith differs from every other act of the soul, in that 
while each of the others may be produced or caused by natural 
means, it is the result of supernatural inworking of the Holy 
Ghost, mysteriously accompanying the truth with His own pow- 
erful demonstration, and divinely convincing it of the excellence, 
beauty, and all-sufiiciency of Jesus Christ. 

2. Saving faith differs from every other act of the soul, in that 
while one is simply an act of the intellect assenting to truth, and 
another, a state of the emotions, it is the act of the intellect, the 
heart, and the will — ^the act of the whole soul with all its powers 
harmoniously discharging their appropriate functions in relation 
to the object. 

(57) 



68 



FAITH. 



3. Saving faith differs from all those acts of the soul some- 
times mistaken for it by a diversity as to the object on which it 
terminates. Thus, he who believes that the Scriptures are true, 
simply assents to a logical proposition ; he who thinks he is in a 
state of peace because he has felt so happy in attending upon ex- 
citing religious services, simply believes a proposition which may 
or may not be true. The object upon which saving faith termin- 
ates, is not a historical fact, nor a proposition nor a form of 
words, but 2, person^ a living being, to whom we may say, I be- 
lieve Thy word, I approve Thy law, I embrace Thy precious 
promises, because Thou hast spoken the word. Thou hast enacted 
the law, Thou hast uttered the promises ; I love Thee, because 
Thou hast loved me ; I give myself to Thee, because Thou hast 
given Thyself for me; I cast myself upon Thine everlasting 
arms, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength ; I trust 
my life, my soul, my all to Thee forever ; for I know whom I 
have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I 
have committed to Him against that day." 

The expressions used in Scripture to describe the exercise of 
faith show that it is something very different from simple belief 
in a proposition. 

"Have faith in God," "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ," 
" Look unto Me," " Eeceiving Christ," " Eating of Him," " Com- 
ing to Him," "Embracing Him," "Fleeing unto Him," "Lay- 
ing hold of Him," — all clearly show that Faith is differentiated 
from all acts of belief by involving as its essential element confi- 
dence in a jperson^ as distinguished from belief in a truth em- 
bodied in words. 

]Now we may have confidence in a human as well as in a 
Divine person. Hence there is a human faith and a Divine 
faith. 

"When a client commits a cause to an advocate and relies on 
his professional skill for a favorable verdict, there is something 
different from mere helief ; and this "something" \& faith — 
faith terminating on 2ij)erson as its object. 

An American man-of-war was once lying becalmed in the 
Mediterranean. The son of the captain, a playful boy, amused 



FAITH. 



59 



himself daily by climbing the rigging. One day, with the 
thonghtlessness of childhood, he ascended to the very top of the 
mainmast, and stood upon the giddy summit swaying to and fro 
with the gently-heaving billow. His father saw him from the 
deck, and knowing fi*om experience that it would be impossible 
for him to stoop down from his perilous perch to regain his hold 
upon the mast, without falling headlong to the deck, he shouted 
to him, Joip ! I command you, jv/mj) into the vxder The 
boy looked down to assure himself that it was his father that 
spoke, and then, with an instantaneous bound, he leaped, cleared 
the deck, plunged into the sea, and was saved. Here was some- 
thing different from belief. It was faith manifesting itself 
in prompt obedience. Precisely the same act of the soul termin- 
ating on God is that Divine faith of which the Bible speaks. 
Faith in the last analysis is the act of confiding in a person ; — 
human, when the person is a man ; divine, when the person is 
God. 

This explanation of faith will enable you to understand the 
11th chapter of Hebrews — in which faith is represented as 
underlying all those heroic doings and sufferings of the Old Testa- 
ment saints, " of whom the world was not worthy." " By faith, 
Abel offered a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain; by faith, 
Enoch was translated ; by faith, Xoah built an ark ; by faith, 
Abraham obeyed, and went from his own land, not knowing 
whither he went ; by faith, he offered up Isaac ; by faith, Hoses 
refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter ; by faith, the 
Israelites passed tln-ough the Red Sea ; by faith, heroes, kings, 
and prophets subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained 
promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of 
fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made 
strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the 
aliens ; by faith, women received then- dead raised to fife again ; 
and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance. And others 
had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover, of 
bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn 
asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword; they wan- 
dered about in sheep-skins and goat-skins, being destitute, af- 



60 



FAITH. 



flicted, tormented ; they wandered in deserts and mountains, and 

in dens and caves of the earth." 

Regarding faith as a principle implanted in the soul by the 
Holy Spirit, the essence of which is confidence in a person, we 
can see how it is the germ of the many developments ascribed to 
it by the Apostle in the foregoing enumeration of Faith's con- 
flicts and victories. This we could not understand, if faith were 
merely a belief of truth. So that I am justified in saying that 
Faith is not belief, but it is a cause of which belief is only one 
of the many effects ; — the root out of which belief and many 
other graces grow. 

You beheve one man's statement, because you have confi- 
dence in the man himself ; you disbelieve another's, because 
you lack confidence in the man himself. And so the Chris- 
tian believes the Word of God, because he has confidence in 
God — the personal God — the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of 
Jacob. 

^^'ow, as any fundamental principle in the soul makes itself 
known in various ways ; — as benevolence, for example, may wear 
a thousand smiling semblances ; so faith exhibits itself outwardly 
in various forms — sometimes by believing the truth, because it is 
revealed by God ; sometimes by relying on His promises ; some- 
times by prompt obedience to His commands ; sometimes by filial 
love and reverence ; sometimes by acceptance of Jesus Christ as a 
Saviour. Faith is confidence in God, in all His offices, as Crea- 
tor, Preserver, and Benefactor ; or as Moral Governor, Redeem- 
er, and Sanctifier. And justifying, or saving, faith is that specific 
act of the soul, in which, fixing upon God, the Redeemer, as its 
object, it flees to His cross, trusts to His righteousness, bows to 
His will, and chugs to His everlasting arm. 

II. I come now to the second question I propose to answer : 
"Why does the Apostle Peter call faith "precious" ? 
1. Because it cannot be obtained in the way other valuable ac- 
quisitions are made. Gold cannot buy it. Labor will not pro- 
cure it. Birth, talents, learning, wiU not acquire it. It is pre- 
cious, because nothing which has a tangible value in this world 



FAITH. 



61 



can be exchanged for it. Bj grace ye are saved tlirongli faith, 
and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. 

Let me iUustrate. A great banqnet has been provided throngh 
the munificence of a merchant prince. The invitations cost 
y notliing to those who receive them. They cannot be purchased 
with money. So precious are they, that if they could be bought, 
hundreds would pour out gold for the privilege of admission to 
the great supper. Xone can enter except the favored few. Is 
the invitation worth nothing because it costs nothing ? ^^ay, it 
enhances its value that it can be obtained only as a gift. 

Belief in the truth of the Bible may be attained by a study of 
the overwhelming proof of its authenticity and inspiration ; but 
" precious faith," the " faith of God's elect," as the Apostle calls 
it, comes not " of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man " 
(John i. 13), but of the demonstration of the Spirit." 

2. But if faith is precious on account of its origin, it is no less 
precious on account of its results. 

(1.) It is the instrument of our justification before God's law. 
We are justified by faith in the atoning Saviour. In order to 
realize the full meaning of these words, you must in imagination 
project yourself forward to that great day, when on a great 
white throne, the Judge of all the earth shall sit to pass sen- 
tence upon men for the deeds done here in the body. The 
question that will then agitate every bosom will be, "Where- 
with shall I come before the Lord, and bow myseK before the 
high God ? " 

One shall say, " Lord, in Thy name have I prophesied, and 
done many wonderful works "; another, " I have sacrificed 
burnt- offerings and poured out rivers of oil "; another, "' I have 
given my first-born for my transgressions — the fruit of my body 
for the sin of my soul"; another, "I have been charitable, ami- 
able, philanthropic "; another, " I have fasted and prayed, have 
worn hair-cloth, and scourged myself with bloody rods, have 
done many ' works of supererogation,' and many penances." Oh ! 
my friends ! in the blazing light of eternity, all these " righteous- 
nesses" will look like " filthy rags." 

But there shall appear another before that august tribunal, 



62 



FAITH. 



who will say : Lord, if Thou art strict to roark iniquities, O 
Lord, who shall stand ? And when God shall open the book 
of judgment, his faith shall say, "Lord, I place the death of 
J esus between me and Thy judgment ; otherwise I will not con- 
tend or enter into judgment with Thee." And if God shall say, 
" But thou art a sinner," his faith shall reply, " Lord, I put the 
death of the Lord Jesus between me and my sins, and I offer 
His merits in place of my own, which I ought to have, but have 
not." And if God shall say, " But I am angry with thee," his 
faith will reply, " Lord, I put the Lord Jesus between me and 
Thine anger." And then his faith shall be counted to him for 
righteousness. But in reality, the believer shall not wait till that 
great day to be vindicated before that high court. Even now, 
while on earth, his sins are cancelled and his justification is com- 
plete. He does not walk in chains expecting future deliverance. 
The moment he trusted in Jesus as a Saviour his chains were 
struck off, his sins were blotted out, and his name was written in 
the Lamb's book of life ; and then his faith was " the substance 
of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." " Precious 
faith!" 

(2.) Faith is precious, because it gives conscious peace with 
God. The believer is no longer afraid of God. Why should he 
be afraid of God ? It is God that has justified him ; and shall 
his justifier lay anything to his charge ? 

Then, as a necessary consequence, comes peace of conscience. 
For when God is pacified, his own conscience is also pacified, 
and then through faith, he realizes the " peace which passeth all 
understanding." " Precious faith ! " 

(3.) Faith gives communion d^ndi fellowship with God. As the 
mutual intercourse between men depends upon the confidence 
subsisting between them, so our communion with God depends 
upon our affectionate confidence in Him as Preserver and Pe- 
deemer. And as it is the first impulse of our nature to flee to 
the person in whom we most confide, to whisper our sorrows in 
his ear or to claim his sympathy with our joys, so the soul that 
trusts in God communes with Him in secret, or talks with Him 
by the wayside. Although he may use no speech or language, 



FAITH, 



63 



and his voice be not heard, yet, like Enoch, he "walks with 
God," holding sweet, but mysterious colloquy. 

(4.) Once more. Faith gives a man power with God ; because 
one of the strongest principles of a rightly constituted nature is 
never to disappoint any confidence justly reposed in it. Why, 
who is there that would not protect a fawn pursued by the 
hunter, if it should leap into his arms and with liquid eye ap- 
peal for succor ? or a dove, pursued by a hawk, if it should fly 
into and nestle in his bosom? An appeal by innocence, by 
helplessness, or by distress, in which the individual abandons 
himself with entire confidence to us, is the very strongest ap- 
peal that can be made to our nature ; and very often it will be met 
by the greatest sacrifices not only of individuals but of great 
nations. Let any refugee from political European tyranny come 
to our shores and confide himself to the American people for 
protection, and let him be pursued by Austria or Russia, or by 
the world in arms, and the whole people would arise like a 
living wall around him, and he would be taken only when they 
had trampled down a nation of dead men. 

Shall men do this? and will not God stretch forth His arm 
over those who nestle under the shadow of His wing ? Heaven 
and earth may pass away, but not a hair of the head of that 
man who puts his trust in God shall ever fall to the ground. 
Sooner, far sooner, would God blot out the universe than He 
would disappoint the authorized confidence of the most insig- 
nificant of His creatures. Precious faith! which gives to 
feeble man such power with God ! Learn then where to look 
to-day. Don't harass yourself with the question, " Do I really 
have faith?" You do yourself harm by this self-inspection. 
Turn away from yourself and look to Jesus, the author and 
finisher of faith. Look aloft ! Look aloft ! If with the peni- 
tential Psalmist you say, " But my sin is ever before me," turn 
away from it and gaze on that Saviour whose glory and whose 
grace are most conspicuously illustrated in that He is able and 
wilhng to save even you. 



FAITH. 



" Cling to the Mighty One ; 

Cling in thy grief. 
Cling to the Holy One ; 

He gives relief. 
Cling to the Gracious One ; 

Cling in thy pain. 
Cling to the Faithful One ; 

He will sustain. 
Cling to the Living One ; 

Cling ill thy woe. 
Cling to the Loving One ; 

Through all below. 
Cling to the Pardoning One 

He speaketh peace. 
Cling to the Healing One ; 

Anguish shall cease. 
Cling to the Bleeding One ; 

Cling to His side. 
Cling to the Eisen One ; 

In Him abide." 



V. 



JUSTIFICATION 

"Being justified by faith, we have peace with God." — Rom. v. 1. 

This text assumes that by nature men are not at peace with 
God. I shall not consume time in proving this. In jour hours 
of quiet reflection, jou all confess that aU is not right between 
you and your Maker. The soul that sinneth, it shall die"; and 
as all have sinned, all must die, unless some means can be devised 
by which they can escape the penalty of sin. 

God cannot abolish His law to suit your case. He has declared 
that He vdll " by no means clear the guilty." There is no hope 
in this direction. Yet the Gospel comes to you and says, Here 
is a scheme devised by God, and executed by His Son, by which 
you who are really a guilty sinner, may be treated as if you had 
never sinned at all. This scheme is called a plan of Justification. 
JN'ow what is Justification ? It " is an act of God's free grace, 
wherein He pardons all our sins and accepts us as righteous in 
His sight only for the righteousness of Christ, imputed to us, 
and received by faith alone." 

It is very clear from the use of the word " Justification," both 
in Scripture and in our common talk, that it has respect to the 
violation of law. We never speak of our being justified in doing 
an innocent act. We always say it in reference to something 
contrary to law. If a man kills another, he is at once arrested.. 
Why ? Because he has done what the law forbids. But suppose 
he did it in self-defence ? He is at once released on the ground 
that he was justifiable. But even though everybody knew this 
beforehand, this does not exempt him from arrest and trial. He 
is liable to punishment until he shall be by law pronounced 

(65) 



66 



JUSTIFICATION. 



" justified." Observe, the Court does not say that the man did 
not kill his neighbor ; it simply declares that although he did 
kill he cannot be legally punished. 

Now the Bible uses the word "justify" in the same sense 
exactly. In Scripture usage a justified man is not one who is 
not a sinner ; but one whom for good reasons God will treat as 
if he had never sinned. Justification is an act of God. " It is 
God that justifies," says Paul. It is an act of God declaring the 
sinner Just — i. 6., declaring him released from the clutches and 
the penalty of the Law. Now listen carefully to a very import- 
ant statement. God stands in two different relations to all His 
creatures on this earth. First, He is their King ; secondly, He 
is their Judge. 

As King, He makes the Law. 

As Judge, He administers and executes the Law. 

Now, although I have been preaching to you constantly about 
the " pardon " of sin — and this use of the word is right, as it is 
the Scripture term — yet, speaking accurately, I say, God never 
pardons sin. Pardon is the act of a sovereign who forcibly steps 
in between the criminal and the execution and sets the law aside. 
Justification is the act of a just judge who declares that the law 
has no claim upon the accused. Pardon releases the criminal at 
the very moment that he is acknowledged to be guilty. 

Justification releases him on the ground that he is accounted 
just. Pardon supposes guilt ; Justification is a formal declara- 
tion of freedom from guilt. In Pardon the law is set aside. In 
Justification the law is satisfied. Pardon remits a just penalty. 
To justify is to declare that the infliction of the penalty would 
be unjust. In no language spoken on earth do the words to 
pardon and to justify mean the same thing. If they did mean 
the same thing, then we must admit that the law of God may be 
dispensed with. For a pardon is the remission of a sentence the 
execution of which justice demands ; of course the law would be 
set aside if justification and pardon were identical. But the 
Bible is uniform in the declaration that the law is immutable 
both as to its commands and its penalty, — that there can be no 
remission of the penalty without a complete satisfaction of the 



JUSTIFICATION. 



67 



demands of the law. As, therefore, the law cannot lie set aside, 
that act of God which jnstifies the sinner must be something 
different from pai'don. Xow the account which the Scriptm-es 
give of Justification shows that this view is correct. Justification 
is a dispensation from the penalty of the law, and a restoration 
to the favor of God, on the ground of the sinners presenting a 
righteousness — that is, presenting before the law the verv thing 
that the law demands. Pai'don is the act of mere sovereignty, 
and does not demand any satisfaction to the law. Justification is 
founded on a full satisfaction to the law ; and, ergo^ it cannot be 
pardon. Another important distinction is this : Pardon simplj 
remits a penalty. The pardoned criminal is an outcast from 
society. He is looked upon with suspicion and distrust. Have 
you never seen how hard it is for a pardoned felon to regain the 
lost confidence of his fellow-men? But justification not only 
remits a penalty ; it actually confers a title to the rewards of 
actual hohness : so the justified ai'e not only delivered from hell, 
but haye a clear title to heaven. This is in perfect consistency 
with strict justice. The law demands a perfect righteousness, 
and promises eternal fife to every one who complies with this 
demand. Xow in justification the sinner is provided with a per- 
fect righteousness — the very thing that the law demands — there- 
fore he who is justified has a right to demand admission into 
heaven. The everlasting doors are thrown open wide, and the 
ranks of the angels give way ; the fiery cherub sheathes his sword 
to allow any one to enter and ascend who appears clothed in the 
righteousness of God, the Son. Who dares bar his entrance 
now ? It is God that has justified him. TVho dares condemn 
him ? 

Thus you see that pardon and justification have only one point 
of resemblance, in this — that both release the criminal from pun- 
ishment. 

Here are points of difference : 

Justification is the act of a just judge. Pardon is the arbi- 
trary act of a sovereign. Justification recognizes the claims of 
justice. Pardon tramples on justice. Justification rewards. 
Pardon simply releases. To justify the sinner is the only way 



68 



JUSTIFICATION. 



in wMcli God, as a just Judge, can save him. Do you not see 
that I was right in saying that in the strict use of words God 
cannot be said to pardon ? 

JSTow you ask very pertinently : How can God remain just 
and yet be a justifier of a man who is acknowledged to be un- 
godly ? 

This brings us to the very marrow of the Gospel. 

The Apostle tells us that Christ, who knew no sin, was made 
sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in 
Him. The Scriptures say distinctly that nothing we can do will 
avail to make us just before God ; that we are justified solely on 
the ground of the righteousness of Christ. This is the doctrine 
of the Old Testament as well as of the JS'ew ; for Isaiah, the 
prophet, calls Christ the " Loed oue Righteousness." 

]^ow, I want to answer another question that has come into 
your minds : " How can the righteousness of one person be the 
ground of the justification of another ? " " God requires me to 
be holy." " How can the righteousness of Christ satisfy this 
demand upon me ? " I answer, it cannot, unless it can be " im~ 
jputed^^ to me : unless I can be accounted to have it though in- 
herently destitute of it. You ask again, "Is not this a mere 
sham \ Can a just and holy God give me credit for what I do 
not really have ? " I answer. He can, provided you are so united 
with Christ, that He stands as your representative. You all 
understand this doctrine of representation ; what the Senator 
from Kentucky does in Congress the people of Kentucky are 
accounted as doing. The world holds you responsible for his 
acts ; although you may not know at the time what he is doing. 
They are imputed to you. You know the old law maxim. What 
one does by an agent, he himself is accounted as doing. 

But how does Christ become your representative? I answer, 
by your electing Him to take your place. This election of J esus 
Christ as your representative in the high court of heaven is 
called " faith." By this act of faith, you become united with 
Him. His righteousness is your righteousness. His bearing the 
penalty of your sin is your bearing it. By means of this union 
with Christ as your representative, you are legally accounted as 



JUSTIFICATION. 



69 



doing and suffering all that He did and suffered for yon. It is 
to this the Apostle refers when he says, I am crucified \rith 
Christ"; and again, ^' Therefore we ai-e buried with Him by bap- 
tism into death that is, as om- baptism is the outward sign of 
our profession of faith in Christ, when we are baptized we be- 
come so united with Him, that His death is our death, His bmial 
onr bm-ial. 

Thus faith, union with Christ. imj)utation of His righteousness 
to US, and justification, are all distinct, but essential links in the 
great chain of man's redemption. And as these two, — faith, the 
act of man, and justification, the act of God, — are at the two ends 
of the chain, the one on earth, the other in heaven ; the Apostle, 
omitting the intermecHate hnks of the series, says : Therefore, 
being justified by faith, we have peace with God." I have been 
answering yom' questions, now I want you to answer mine. 
Will you accept salvation on these terms ? Do not say, " I will 
think about it and tell you some time soon." You must come to 
this at last, if you are ever saved at all. You must consent to be 
saved as a sinner, without a ray of your own righteousness. If you 
ever feel good enough to me'rit salvation, you may be sure that 
this seK-righteousness will make you stumble before you reach 
the cross. A man never feels so vile as at the instant he casts 
himself on Christ. By grace ye are saved through faith. Xow, 
I want every unconverted man, woman, and child, before he 
leaves this house, to answer this question to his own heart : ''Am 
I v: ill big to cibandon every other ground of hojpe and trust to 
the rigJdeousness of Christ f " There is nothing mysterious or 
unintelligible in what I ask you to do. It is exactly like any 
other determination you may form. It needs no long prepara- 
tion, no praying, no humbling of yourself before God, no fast- 
ing, no moaning, no laceration of soul or body. You do not 
need to prepai-e for it by long and bitter penitence, by painful 
and protracted self-examination, or by a month or a week spent 
in the endeavor to break ofi bad habits. You cannot prepare 
yourseK to receive the righteousness of Christ. Christ holds out 
no hope to the man who tries to make himself righteous. He 
did not come to save the rio-hteous. A righteous man does 



70 



JUSTIFICATION, 



not need salvation. The salvation of the Lord Jesus is a sal- 
vation for sinners. Such an idea as salvation by works, by 
merit, by making yourseK worthy to receive the righteousness 
of God — why, this frustrates the grace of God ; it subverts the 
Gospel. It would reverse the song of the redeemed in heaven ; 
for that song is, " Unto Him who hath loved us, and washed us 
from our sins in BUs own blood, be glory and dominion." But 
if you are to prepare yourselves for grace, your song would be, 
" Unto myseK, who have made myself fit for salvation, and wor- 
thy of God's mercy ; unto me be all the praise and the glory." 
"What a travesty of the Gospel this would be ! 

A missionary among the Indians was visited by a proud chief, 
who had been deeply convicted of sin by the Spirit of God. The 
savage, while trembling under a sense of guilt, was unwilHng, 
like a great many civilized people, to take of the water of life 
freely. He brought his wampum to the missionary and ten- 
dered it as a peace-offering to God. The man of God shook his 
head and said, " No, God will not accept this as an atonement for 
sin." He went away, but came again, bringing his wife and aU 
the peltry he had taken in hunting. The missionary still shook 
his head, and again the wretched sinner withdrew. But the 
Spirit gave him no peace, and he returned once more to offer his 
wigwam, his wife, his children, and all that he had, to have 
" peace with God." The missionary still shook his head. The 
chief stood for a moment, his head bowed down in despair, and, 
raising his eyes to heaven, his heart poured forth in a cry of un- 
reserved surrender, " Here, Lord, take poor Indian too." 

To this, my friends, you must come at last, if you would 
" have peace with God." 

*' But drops of ^ief can ne'er repay 
The debt of love I owe ; 
Here, Lord, I give myself away, 
'Tis aU that I can do." 

One word of counsel : 

I never preach the Gospel without confidently expecting some 
soul to be converted. I have no doubt that some of you have 
accepted Jesus Christ this day. ]^ow, hear what Jesus says : 



JUSTIFICATION. 



71 



" Whosoever confesseth me before men, him shall the Son of 
Man confess before the angels of God ; but he that denieth me 
before men shall be denied before the angels of God." But one 
way to confess Christ before men is to do so publicly in the 
Church of God. Come, then, to the church of your father and 
of your sainted mother, or to the church where your wife has 
been praying for you, lo ! these many years, or to any Christian 
church near which you live, and cast in your lot with it, saying : 

" People of the living God, 

I have sought the world around, 
Paths of sin and sorrow trod, 
^ Peace and comfort nowhere found : 

Now to you my spirit turns, 
Turns a fugitive, unblest ; 
Brethren, where your altar bums, 
Oh ! receive me into rest." 



VI. 



CONYICTIOK 

"I remembered God and was troubled."— Ps. Ixxvii. 3. 

All men seek congenial objects of meditation. If at any time 
unpleasant subjects are forced upon their attention, either by ac- 
cident or by the mysterious law of the association of ideas, they 
are speedily expelled from the mind as unwelcome intruders. 
As the happiness of most men depends upon their peace of mind 
rather than upon their external surroundings ; and as all men 
seek happiness by an instinct of nature, it is natural that they 
should endeavor to banish from their minds all thoughts that 
might endanger their wonted tranquilhty. This will account for 
the aversion to serious meditation which characterizes the larger 
part of mankind. It fully explains that habitual lethargy in 
regard to matters of rehgion which we find so common among 
men of the world. Men cannot reflect upon their origin, their 
duty, and their destiny, without thinking about God ; and think- 
ing about God is adapted to produce trouble — not metaphysical 
trouble — that intellectual travail which attends the comprehen- 
sion or the solving of some mystery or some perplexing problem ; 
but that trouble which comes from a restless, disquieted con- 
science ; the uneasiness of a wounded spirit, which inspired wis- 
dom tells us is hard to bear. Hence the Psalmist says : The 
fool hath said in his heart, ' there is no God' i. e., he says so 
in his desires, not in his intellect. It is only in his heart that the 
atheism resides. He wishes that there were no God ; hence he 
would fain believe that there is no God, and his practical life is 
moulded insensibly into an habitual forgetfulness of God. For 



CONVICTION. 



73 



the same reason, as the Apostle sajs, the heathen did not like 
to retain God in theu^ knowledge." 

This aversion to God of the natural heart manifests itself in 
every class of men. When they "remember God they are 
troubled," and therefore they banish thoughts of God from their 
minds. The expedients by which they seek to do this, may be 
all reduced to two classes. 

First, there is speculative Atheism. Among men of a reflect- 
ing turn of mind, the questions, whence am I ? and whither am I 
going ? often suggest themselves. These questions at once bring 
God to the mind. If the thought of God thus suggested is dis- 
tressing, they often seek a refuge in what they regard a rational 
scepticism ; or, if they cannot force themselves into the absurdity 
of Atheism, they deny the God of the Bible, and make for them- 
selves a god of whom they may speak without fear, and whom 
they may remember without "being troubled." 

But a far more common as well as a more invulnerable for- 
getting of God is the Atheism of the fool who says in his feel- 
ings and desires, " There is no God." It is the practical ignoring 
of God in His distinctive character — not the theoretical denial of 
His existence — a knowing of God and yet not glorifying Him as 
God — the outward acknowledgment, the habitual, inward for- 
getting of Him. This is the most prevalent form of Atheism, 
and the secret cause of it is disclosed in the text : When men 
"remember God they are trouhled''^ \ or as Job expresses it, 
" When I consider, I am afraid of Him." A calm, dehberate 
analysis of the Divine character, and of our relations to the 
Divine Being, is adapted to awaken the emotion of fear in the 
breast of the natural man. 

Wicked men seem to think frequently of God. They do not 
hesitate to utter His name on the most trivial occasions ; and, so 
far from being troubled by them, such recollections of God give 
them no concern whatever. It is not to such impious recollec- 
tions of God that the Psalmist aUudes, nor even to the common 
recognitions of God that flit through the minds of all men. So 
far from exciting a sense of uneasiness, such transient reminis- 
cences familiarize the mind with His august and reverend name. 



74 



CONVICTION. 



and only aggravate the habitual irreverence. But if men could 
only be induced to replace these transient and unmeaning 
thoughts of God by one hour's serious contemplation of the 
Divine character, they would find that the experiment is adapted 
to disturb their quiet, to harrow up their fears — in short, to give 
them "trouble." 

If any of you who hear me, doubt this, let me invite you to 
such a remembering of God ; and if you will faithfully and in- 
telligently follow me in the course of thought which I shall sug- 
gest, you may perhaps be ready to echo the language of the text : 
" I remembered God and was troubled." 

Arrest the current of your listless thoughts, and " consider and 
be afraid of Him." 

In order to think profitably of God so as to be affected by a 
meditation upon His character, we must think of His several at- 
tributes as they are revealed in His Word. I invite you, there- 
fore, to think of some of those Divine attributes, the remem- 
brance of which is adapted to produce uneasiness in the mind of 
a sinner. 

1. The God of the Bible is a Being of immaculate hoh'ness 
and purity. IS'ow it is the instinct of an unholy being to dread 
the presence and shun the approach of one that is holy. It is 
not necessary to explain why this is so. It is enough to know 
that it is so. It accords with the observation and experience of 
every one of us. The aversion between the holy and the unholy 
is mutual. The antipathy is equal. And as a being of perfect 
purity can regard a sinful being only with abhorrence, the sinner 
knows that the pure eye of the Holy One is looking on him with 
disapproval. Hence a vivid recognition of the holiness of God 
is always followed by the pungent and painful conviction of sin. 
We cannot look at His purity without the immediate conscious- 
ness of our own vileness. As soon as Adam heard the voice of 
a holy God in the garden, he looked upon his own nakedness 
with shame ?indi fear / so when we fix our minds upon a holy God, 
we at once look inward at our own uncleanness. In the broad 
glare of the sunshine, we see filthiness on our garments that was 
invisible in the darkness of the night. But this is not all. The 



CONVICTION, 



75 



sense of sin awakened in the human bosom by tlie contemplation 
of a holy God, is immediately succeeded by the sense of guilt. 
The sinner then feels like stubble before consuming fire. This 
experience is not confined to the wicked man. The best and 
holiest men upon a vivid perception of this Divine attribute are 
filled with trepidation and dismay on account of the contrast 
presented in themselves. When Isaiah saw the Lord sitting 
upon His throne high and Hfted up, and heard the serapliim 
lauding this attribute, crying one to another, " Holy, holy, holy is 
the Lord of Hosts," he cried, smitten with fear and with deep 
conviction of personal sin, " Woe is me, for I am undone : be- 
cause I am a man of unclean lips," and he had no peace until he 
received angelic assurance of the purgation of his iniquity. This 
conviction of sin and consequent sense of guilt produce mental 
trouble, because the sinner knows that a holy God must of neces- 
sity abhor him. He can have no pleasure in wickedness. He is 
of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look upon in- 
iquity." He " hates all workers of iniquity." And even though 
His hatred of the persons of behevers is removed by their faith 
in the atonement, yet His hatred of their sin is not in the least 
abated thereby. 'Now the distinct recognition of this Divine 
attribute involves the recognition of all these truths. Think of 
the fact that the greatest Being in the universe is looking down 
from His high and lofty throne upon you with a disapprobation 
so intense that He is represented in a figure as averting His 
gaze from you, because He cannot bear to look upon you in your 
vileness ; and is not the thought adapted to produce such a state 
of mental perturbation as would lead you to echo the language 
of the text, I remembered God and was troubled " ? 

2. Intimately connected with the remembrance of God's holiness 
is the recognition of His justice. For His justice is only another 
aspect of His holiness. His holiness is that attribute by which 
He loves the right and abhors the wrong. His justice rewards 
the good and punishes the evil. It is an essential attribute of 
God. He cannot be other than just. He must punish sin. 
Hence the Bible represents this attribute as like fire. As it is 
essential to fire to burn, so it is essential to the Divine nature to 



76 



CONVICTION. 



punish all iniquity. " Our God is a consuming fire." Consider, 
then, what God's justice will compel Him to do. Haviug pro- 
mulgated His Law, He must abide by His declaration that He 
will by no means clear him that is guilty of its violation. To 
reward the good and to punish the bad is the rule of the just 
administration of Law. It is not optional with God to deviate 
from this rule in His moral government of His creatures. And 
of His determination to deal with you according to His immuta- 
ble purpose, He has fully and frequently advised you in His 
Word : " I will render vengeance to mine enemies and will reward 
them that hate me " (Deut. xxxii. 41). " He will not be slack to 
him that hateth Him ; He will repay him to his face " (Deut. vii. 
10). " The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will 
not at all acquit the wicked " (Nahum i. 3). To all holy beings, 
this consistency of character and purpose, this harmony of pur- 
pose with the execution of it, must be the objects of continual 
admiration, love, and praise. But alas for the sinner ! that very 
Justice which decks the Seraphim with beauties and fills the 
Cherubim with joy is a sword, a terror, and a curse to his shrink- 
ing, cowering spirit. It weighs him in the balances, and he is 
found wanting. It restlessly pursues him. Its sword, like that 
of Damocles, hangs suspended over him by a hair, while he 
reclines at his banquet ; while he journeys, it sits behind the 
rider. In all his daily walks, the emissary of Justice is dogging 
his footsteps, bearing the scroll of his sentence on which is in- 
scribed in dreadful capitals, Condemned Already while by 
his side the recording angel bears the indictment containing the 
accumulating catalogue of offences which swell the vast aggre- 
gate of ill-desert. His best deeds all contribute a quota of guilt ; 
and so far from extenuating aught or cancelling any, there is 
enough in what he deems his " good works " to justify the reiter- 
ation and confirmation of the sentence, " Condemned Already." 
Let him try to draw around him the mantle of a moral life, and 
thus hide his secret sins ; — Justice inexorable tears away the 
flimsy veil, and tramples on it as " filthy rags," and thus disclos- 
ing the hidden deformity, points with rigid finger to the writing 
on the scroU of judgment, " Guilty hefore God^ " Condemned 



CONVICTION. 



77 



Already." This transition in thought from the justice of God 
to a man's sense of his own ill-desert is inevitable ; the two are 
inseparably associated in consciousness, and the man seeks in vain 
to divorce them. The consciousness of being amenable to the 
y penalty of the just law of a holy God is the som-ce of intolerable 
disquietude ; and hence he who thinks of God in reference to 
His inexorable justice, can truly say, " I remembered God and 
was troubled." 

3. While the soul is thus perturbed by reflecting upon God's 
justice, its agitation is exasperated by the remembrance of God's 
knowledge. 

The man who has sinned against the law of the land, or against 
the conventional rules of society, feels a sense of security as long 
as he thinks his act is unknown to the magistrate or to those 
whose condemnation would put him under the ban. The very 
moment he has reason to think he is even only siisjjected by 
either, that very moment they become to him objects of aversion 
or of fear. If, however, he knows that they not only susjpect 
but linoiD him to be guilty, the thought of this knowledge on 
their part becomes to him a source of the most harassing agita- 
tion ; and as often as the picture of those who he fears will 
become his accusers is presented to his mind, so often is the pre- 
sentation a cause of mental uneasiness and of aversion toward 
those whom he fears. Xow it is precisely this state of mind and 
this attitude toward God which are produced by the calm consid- 
eration of the Divine Omniscience. For this Tinoidedge of God 
is absolutely all-comprehending, extending over the whole of the 
past and stretching out over the limitless future ; terminating, 
not only on the vast concerns which by themselves would tax the 
most towering created mind to hold them, but upon the thoughts 
and intents of every created heart ; piercing through the thick 
darkness of the night, and through the thicker veil that enshrouds 
the inner recesses of the human soul ; brino-ino: out into bold 
relief before the infinite Eye those more subtle shades of emotion 
and those half-formed, furtive 23urposes which escape the grasp 
of a man'n own consciousness ; catching every idle word that falls 
from thoughtless lips ; and stamping on the Eternal Memory 



78 



CONVICTION. 



every act, thought, word, and feeling of the man from the very 
dawn of consciousness till the present moment. The sins of 
youth, forgotten by the man himself ; the sins of manhood and 
of riper years palliated and excused before the bar of conscience ; 
the sins now premeditated, but not yet consummated ; sins of 
omission, sins of commission ; sins against God, against neighbor, 
against husband, against wife, against self, all " naked and open 
before the eye of Him with whom we have to do." The multi- 
tude and multiplicity of His concerns do not and cannot avert 
His eye or divert His attention for one moment from the cease- 
less contemplation of the guilt of every individual human soul. 
It is as if that one human being were the only being in the uni- 
verse that attracts the attention of his Maker, and as if the burn- 
ing eye of the Almighty were glaring only upon him in its fierce 
wrath and hot displeasure. As it is the triumph of the painter 
so to delineate the eye in the portrait that it shall seem to gaze 
steadily upon each one of a hundred persons in the same room, 
so that each feels himself to be the only one to whom the gaze is 
directed, so the eye of God rests upon each one of us. " Thou, 
God, seest m^," is the confession of every man who has a right 
conception of God. Can any man, then, thus remember God 
without crying out with the Psalmist, " I remembered God and 
was troubled " ? 

4. Turn now to the contemplation of the Power of this Holy, 
Just, Omniscient God. It is by His power that He accomplishes 
all the decrees of His justice and His goodness. His power ex- 
tends to every part of the universe, and to every event actual or 
possible. It reaches to the utmost star, and yet finds a field for 
its exercise in the mote that sparkles in the sunbeam. It holds 
the hard round world in its orbit, and it shapes the dew-drop into 
a sphere. It rides the circle of eternal change, while it propels 
the vital current through every vein and artery of organized life. 
Its finger measures the interminable periods of the comet, while 
it counts the pulsations of the heart of the oyster. His power 
flashes in the blazing band of Orion, while it lights up the 
meadow with the mild lustre of the glow-worm. It holds the 
canopy of heaven upon its ethereal pillars, while it distends the 



CONVICTION. 



79 



bubble tliat sparkles on tlie rim of the beaker. If we stand ter- 
ror-struck in the rush of the whirlwind, or smitten with awe in 
the presence of the strong torrents which in theii' own gladness 
fill the hills with hollow thunder, if the earthquake makes our 
hearts quake, how much more really adapted to awaken the 
emotion of terror is the bare thought that om' breath is in the 
hands of God, and that a single touch of His finger could stop 
the beating of our hearts ; nay, that if He should only for one 
instant withdraw His sustaining hand, we would sink and die. K 
thus the weakness of God is so much stronger than we, when we 
remember that all Xature is but His laboratory filled with an in- 
finite number of occult forces, any one of which He can in an 
instant commission to become our destroyer, this reflection upon 
His infinite resources and the " hiding of His power " is adapted 
to deepen our conception of the frailty of the tenure by which 
we stand upon the confines of hfe. Think, then, of an infinitely 
holy, just, omniscient and all-powerful God who hates sin, whose 
justice condemns you, and whose knowledge searches your in- 
most being, and who holds in His hand an omnipotent rod of 
punishment, and you can but cry out with David, I remembered 
God and was troubled." 

5. If such thoughts as these about God are adapted to give the 
sinner trouble, he is apt to console himself by thinking of God's 
goodness. Like the subhme vision which Moses saw, God makes 
all His goodness pass before us in the daily pageant of Xatiu-e's 
shifting beauty : in the changing seasons, in golden harvests, in 
fruits and flowers, in coohng zephyrs, and refreshing waters. 
But suppose that every star and every flower could become vocal, 
and could utter a voice of reproach to man's ingratitude ; sup- 
pose that every morsel of food were endowed with a sting, and 
every cup of water were drawn from a well of Marah, in order 
to remind you that you have forgotten God's goodness, for the 
very reason that the bread is given and the water sm-e ; suppose 
that God's Providence should become intermittent, in order to 
show you that your gratitude to the Giver of every thing good 
has ceased, for the very reason that the constancy of His protec- 
tion had assumed the semblance of natm^al law ; you might then 



80 



CONVICTION. 



confess in view of even His goodness, " I remembered God and 
was troubled." And shall the remembrance of this goodness, 
forgotten and unrequited, give you less uneasiness though seasons 
roll on, stars ever shine and the fountains perpetually flow? 
When you remember that the goodness of Grod was designed and 
adapted to bring you to repentance, but that after thy hardness 
and impenitent heart thou hast been treasuring up unto thyself 
wrath against the day of wrath ; oh ! when you think of God's 
distinguishing goodness abused and perverted, can you remember 
God without being " troubled " ? 

6. But the favorite refuge from all such mental perturbation, 
is the remembrance of God's mercy. Unquestionably the only 
solid ground of peace for any man is to be found in the mercy of 
God. But what vague and incorrect ideas most men have of 
God's mercy ! They attribute to Him a weak and sentimental 
softuess of character which forbids His dealing harshly with His 
wayward, erring children. They think He is too kind and gen- 
tle to inflict pain upon His feeble creatures, and this is what they 
mean by the mercy of God. But let us hear what God says 
about Himself, " The Lord God, merciful and gracious, long- 
suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy 
for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin, and that 
will by no means clear the guilty." What is the meaning of 
this ? " will by no means clear the guilty." Does this teach that 
He is too tender-hearted to punish sin ? Kow the mercy of God 
is revealed only in the plan of redemption through Jesus Christ. 
He can be good to the sinner without Christ. He can be just in 
all His dealings with him without Christ; but the great and 
glorious Jehovah cannot be merciful to him except through 
Jesus Christ, His Son. Hence the plan of redemption has been 
called a " scheme of mercy." Mercy originated and devised it. 
Mercy achieved it. Mercy proclaims it. Mercy applies it. 
Mercy gives it effect. If then you refuse Christ, if you turn 
your back on Him, if you look with indifference on His insulted 
anguish, who died to make God's mercy available for you ; if 
you can derive comfort from God's mercy while you thus scoff at 
and reject God's Son, your hardihood surpasses that of the devils ; 



CONVICTION. 



81 



for while they believe, thej tremble. God without Christ has no 
mercy for you. God without Christ is a consuming fire." If 
thus you think of God, you have abundant reason to go home 
from this house of God's mercy soliloquizing in the language of 
the text — " I remembered God and was troubled." 

' ' Till Grod in human flesh I see, 
My thoughts no comf oii; find ; 
The holy, just, and sacred Three 
Are terrors to my mind/' 

In conclusion I ask, Are you content to think thus of God 
always ? Are you willing to live always afraid of God ? Can 
you endure always to stand in such an attitude toward God that 
a calm contemplation of His character ^vill fill your soul with 
trouble ? Do you intend always to walk with your eyes fixed on 
the ground afraid to look up, lest you should see God ? " We 
then as ambassadors for God, as though God did beseech you by 
us, we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." 
Oh ! if you would only be reconciled to God by faith in His 
Son, you would become sons of God, and with the spirit of adop- 
tion you would cry, My Father ! My Father ! " And you 
would appropriate the language of another Psalmist, ''My medi- 
tation of Him shall be sweet, when I remember Thee upon my 
bed in the night-watches." Then you will no longer say in your 
heart, There is no God "; for you will have found a God of 
whom you may think without fear, and whom you may remem- 
ber without being troubled — a God under the shadow of whose 
wings yoQ may rejoice, a God in the light of whose countenance 
you may forever bathe, a God who will be your refuge and your 
strength, a very present help in trouble — a God in whose bosom 
your weary soul may eternally repose. 



VII. 



PEACE. 

"Acquaint now thyself with Him and be at peace." — Job xxii. 21. 

This morning I tried to show jou that a calm and deliberate 
analysis of the character of God is adapted to produce trouble in 
the mind of the natural man. I hope those who heard me were 
so troubled that they are now inquiring, How shall we get rid 
of this uneasiness of mind ? How shall we be able to remember 
God without being troubled ? To such an inquirer I answer in 
the language of Eliphaz the Temanite, " Acquaint now thyself 
with Him and be at peace." 

Two things are implied in this utterance : 

1. That a distant knowledge of God, like that to which I re- 
ferred this morning, can never be other than a source of dis- 
quietude. 

2. That a man may obtain such a personal knowledge of God 
as will dispel his fears forever and give him peace. 

I desire, this evening, to introduce you, as it were, to God ; to 
bring you, so to speak, into personal contact with Him. 

Philip said to Jesus, " Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us." 
Jesus replied, ''Have I been so long time with you, and yet 
hast thou not known me, Philip \ He that hath seen me hath 
seen the Father." 

Before Jesus Christ came in the flesh, a few favored individ- 
uals had been personally acquainted with God. Abraham had 
interviews with Him, and was called by God himself, " my 
friend." Moses had met Him in the mount, and received from 
Him the law. Others had heard His voice, and in other ways 
had held direct communication with Him. But all these were 
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PEACE, 



83 



transient, brief seasons of intercourse, which only deepened the 
awe felt for the ineffable majesty of Jehovah. The vast mass of 
the chosen people had no personal acquaintance with God, and 
the pious Israelite felt, Kke Philip, that a sight of the Father 
would suffice him. And now that Christ has come in the flesh, 
whoever knows Him, from henceforth knows God and has seen 
Him. For He is the brightness of the Father's glory and the 
express image of His person. If, then, Christ is God, we shall 
find that an analysis of His character will correspond in every 
respect with the analysis we have made of the character of God. 

1. Christ was a holy being. " For Him no friend ever apolo- 
gized, and no enemy convinced Him of sin. Infidelity itself has 
never ventured to cast any reproach upon His name, which is 
above every name, full of an ideal light." Yet this perfectly 
holy man, instead of repelling, attracted sinners to Him in 
crowds. So winning were His ways that it was a cause of re- 
proach to Him that " this man receiveth sinners and eateth with 
them." 

2. In like manner, it may be shown that Christ, when He 
shall sit upon the throne of His glory, will sit as an infinitely just 
Judge, who shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing 
and His kingdom. 

3. So, too, it is equally clear from Scripture, that Christ is in- 
finite in knowledge. He knew the thoughts and the hearts of 
all men. The woman of Samaria who met Him at Jacob's well, 
said : " Come, see a man which told me all things that I ever 
did." " He needed not that any should testify of man, for He 
knew what was in man." 

4. He was all-powerful. He demonstrated His omnipotence 
over the elements of nature ; for the winds and the seas obeyed 
Him : over the diseases and calamities of human nature ; for at 
His word, the lame walked, the deaf heard, the lepers were 
cleansed, and the dead came to life. 

He claimed the power to summon twelve legions of angels to 
rescue Him from His foes, and declared that all power was given 
to Him in heaven and on earth. 

Here, then, is God in human flesh, holy, just, omniscient, all- 



84 



PEACE. 



powerful : the image of the invisible God, bj whom and for 
whom all things were created. 

This God I present to you and say, " Acquaint now thyself 
with Him and be at peace." 

You may ask in what respect you are better off in becoming 
acquainted with God in Christ than you were in remembering 
the invisible God, if the man Christ Jesus has all the attri- 
butes of the great and glorious God of the Old Testament. To 
this I answer that the very object of the mission of Christ into 
the world was to reveal God as a God of love. This God, holy, 
just, and powerful, so loved the world as to give His only begot- 
ten Son to die for the salvation of men. 

You need to be continually reminded that God does not and 
never did hate our race. You cannot too often be told that God 
was not pacified toward sinners by the interposition of Christ. 
There was no opposition between God the Father and God the 
Son. The plan of redemption originated in the loving heart of 
the Triune God. The love of God the Father was the same 
love that thrilled in the heart of God the Son and God the 
Holy Ghost. This is what is meant by the Gospel : Peace on 
earth and good- will toward men. Whose " good-will " ? Why, 
God's good-will. Gospel means good news. You all know 
what is meant by good news. If you have been waiting to 
hear from an absent child whose life has been despaired of ; or 
if you have been startled by the intelligence that an accident has 
happened to the train that was carrying your loved one to a dis- 
tant city, you remember the thrill of joy you experienced when 
the telegraph announced that the child was getting well, or that 
the dear one had escaped unhurt. Precisely similar is the emo- 
tion when you can be made to realize that God does not hate, 
but really loves you. The whole life of Jesus was a reiteration 
of the song of the angels at His birth, " Peace on earth and 
good-will toward men." 

He held in His hand the sceptre of omnipotence ; and He 
swayed it never to destroy, but always to bless. Virtue went 
forth from Him to those who might only touch the hem of His 
garment. He was the angel of consolation to every saddened 



PEACE. 



85 



home that He entered. In all the forms in which it was possi- 
ble did God, " manifest in the flesh," display His love for men. 
But while the testimony of His words and the evidence of His 
works of beneficence were cumulative proofs, the demonstration 
that God loves men was not complete until the final act of His 
great heroic life. Other men have been philanthropists and 
benefactors of the race. But "scarcely for a righteous man 
will one die, yet, peradventure, for a good man, some would 
even dare to die ; but God commendeth His love to us in that, 
while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Christ, who is 
God, dies, suffers for sinners, on account of their sins. He 
in whom the fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily, sacrifices 
Himself in the agonies of a human death, that man, though a 
sinner, may live forever. Do you ask me to explain how God 
can suffer ? I answer that it is a thing which cannot be ex- 
plained. It is a matter of simple revelation to be behoved with- 
out explanation that the eternal Son of God " entered into vital 
union with human fiesh, in order that the Godhead might pre- 
sent a vulnerable side to the powers of evil for suffering in hfe 
and for the suffering of death." It is enough for you to know 
that God loved you enough to die for you, though you may 
never be able to understand how God could suffer. 

E'ow this is the God you need to become acquainted with, be- 
cause if He loved you to such a degree as this, you may expect 
to get from Him everything necessary to give you peace. Why 
need you try to go back of Him to think of another and differ- 
ent manifestation of God ? Is He not the very God whom your 
fallen, helpless, sinful nature demands ? Is there any one of the 
thousand questions that torture the human bosom with anxiety 
that He does not answer satisfactorily 1 Do you ask. Is there a 
life beyond the grave ? He answers, " Yes, I am the resurrec- 
tion and the life." Is there a place where I may meet my lost 
ones who have gone before ? " Yes, in my Father's house are 
many mansions." But can any one know the Father ? " Yes, 
having seen Me, from henceforth ye have seen Him and 
know Him." Does God regard my daily wants ? " Yes, your 
Father knoweth what things ye have need of." Does He who 



« 



86 PEACE. 

made me care anything for me ? Yes, He has actually num- 
bered the hairs of your head." Is it of any use to pray to Him ? 
" Yes, ask, and ye shall receive." Can I expect forgiveness for 
my sins ? " Yes, the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive 
sins." But how am I to know that this power will be extended 
to me ? " Because whosoever beheveth in Him shall never perish. 
H any man thirst let him come unto Me and drink." But how 
am I to know but that these things were intended only for the 
persons who heard Him and constituted His disciples? Hear 
His answer : " l^either pray I for these alone, but for them also 
who shall believe on me through their word." 

Now, it is clear that if you can become personally acquainted 
with a God who uttered such words of cheer as these, you will 
be at peace. 

Among the ancient Bomans it was part of their religion to 
cherish faith in an inferior class of deities whom they called 
Lo/pes. These Lares were originally human beings, men like us 
in every respect, who had lived upon the earth, and becoming 
pure spirits after death, loved to hover around the dwelHngs they 
once inhabited, to watch over their safety. Having been once 
partakers of our mortal condition, they were supposed to know 
better the quarters from which to expect danger, and what 
assistance to render. Images of these Lares were kept in 
every house, in a little private chapel consecrated to their wor- 
ship. They were sometimes called " household gods." This 
beautiful conception of the heathen mind was only an uncon- 
scious expression of the yearning of our human nature after a 
god with human sympathies and a god near to us. The God 
wdth whom I want you to become acquainted is such a God. 
His name is Immanuel, which means God with us — a God who 
has hved on this earth, who has trodden all the paths of human 
sorrow, who was tempted to commit every sin you ever com- 
mitted, and who, because He was compassed with infirmity, can 
have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of 
the way. 

!N'ow hear what He says : "If a man love me, he will keep 



PEACE. 



87 



my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come and 
make our abode with him." He will be a " household God " to 
you, living under the same roof with you. This is no fanciful 
idea in regard to the presence of Jesus Christ in the house and 
in the cliamber. This is the true doctrine of the " real presence." 
There are many blessed homes where Jesus is a constant gnest. 
There are many Christians in this house who will tell you that 
they talk with Him every day and every hour. There are those 
who, having heard Him knock, have opened the door, and He 
has come in and supped with them. The language of their 
heart is : 

Abide with me, fast falls the eventide; 
The darkness deepens ; Lord, with me abide ; 
When other helpers fail and comforts flee, 
Help of the helpless, oh ! abide with me. 

* * I need Thy presence every passing hour. 
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter's power ? 
Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be ? 
Thi'ough cloud and sunshine, oh ! abide with me." 

He is the Immanuel, the God with us, with whom you must 
become acquainted, if you would be at peace. But how ? You 
cannot see Him. You cannot hear His voice. Here comes in 
the office which Faith has to perform — faith which is the evi- 
dence of things not seen. It is the grace which brings the soul 
into personal contact with an unseen Saviour, " in whom though 
now we see Him not, yet believing, we rejoice with joy unspeak- 
able and full of glory." 

It is one of the miracles of modern chemistry by which the 
artist may impress upon a plate of glass a beautiful portrait invis- 
ible to the ordinary observer. But he who knows the secret 
breathes upon it with the warm breath of love, and lo ! the image 
of the loved one stands out in bold relief. Thus it is that Christ 
manifests Himself to those who love Him as He does not unto 
the world. This secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him. 
Do not call this fanaticism. It is the blessed experience of thou- 
sands. Even young children have it. A little girl was lying in 
bed with a disease that had made her blind. Her teacher said, 



88 



PEACE. 



" Are you blind, Mary ? " " Yes," she replied, " but 1 can see 
Jesus." " How do you see Jesus ? " With the eye of my 
heart." It is irrational to discredit the testimony of good men 
that they hold personal intercourse with Jesus. Ray Palmer has 
embodied the experience of every true Christian in the follow- 
ing hues • 

" Jesus! these eyes have never seen 
That radiant form of Thine ; 
The veil of sense bangs dark between 
Thy blessed face and mine. 

" Yet though I have not seen, and still 
Must rest in faith alone, 
I love Thee, dearest Lord ! and will, 
Unseen, but not unknown." 

" Acquaint now thyself with God," " manifest in the flesh," 
" and be at peace." I close this discourse with a warning from 
one of the greatest of American preachers. " Bear in mind that 
the grand anti-Christian movement of our day is not open and 
bold attack, but a flank movement to get into possession of the 
citadel of faith, which for near two thousand years has proved 
impregnable to the gates of hell. Discovering that humanity 
must have a gospel to satisfy its longings, and that therefore the 
assaults of open Atheism and Deism were unsuccessful from the 
disregard of the necessities of humanity, the assault by the infi- 
delity of our age is chiefly by strategy to substitute ' another gos- 
pel which is not another,' but really no gospel at all. And the 
favorite strategy of all is to impose upon the people a gospel of 
Jesus with the part of Jesus left out. And while it may seem to 
be Christianity, and to construct an attractive form of the Gospel 
for literary men, yet in the day that sorrow and trouble of con- 
science shall drive you in search of a gospel to rest your soul 
upon, this will surely prove the baseless fabric of a vision. ^ Other 
foundation can no man lay than that is laid in Christ Jesus,' 
however brilliant the genius and profound the reasoning powers 
of him that attempts it. And any foundation that pretends to 
be in Christ Jesus, while ignoring His true Divinity, is but a 
cheat and delusion of the human spirit." " Acquaint now thyself 
with God manifest in the flesh, and be at peace." 



VIIL 



PAKDOK 

"For Thy name's sake, 0 Lord, pardon mine iniquity; for it is great."— 
Psalm xxv. 11. 

I DESIRE to present the subject suggested by this text with the 
greatest simphcity and plainness of speech. 

As is evident from what follows this prayer of David, he was 
in great distress. He says he is desolate and afflicted, that the 
troubles of his heart are enlarged, and that he is suffering afflic- 
tion and pain. His troubles, whatever they were, had brought 
him to a deep conviction of sin ; and this was a cause of greater 
anguish than all the outward calamities that had overtaken him. 
There is no greater suffering of which the human spirit is sus- 
ceptible than that which accompanies a profound conviction of 
sin. " The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity, but a 
wounded spirit who can bear ? " In his grief he flees to God. 
There is no other refuge for any sin-sick soul. Unless it can get 
assurance of pardon it must be miserable. The reason so many 
really great sinners are comparatively cheerful and happy is that 
they have lost sight of their sins and guilt, and their minds are 
occupied with other things that crowd out all serious reflections. 

It is only when some faithful Kathan comes, saying, Thou 
art the man," and awakes their consciences, that they see their 
sins in all their naked deformity ; and then, for the time, they 
can see nothing else, and they say with David, " My sin is ever 
before me." Then they have no rest. ]^ew conceptions of the 
purity and breadth of Grod's law, of His inexorable justice, of 
their own ill-desert, and of their lost and helpless condition, arise 
in their minds, and they cry out and roar all the day long. It is 
a happy thing for us, that while we share the experiences of 

(89) 



90 



PARDON. 



David, lie was divinely guided in framing his prayers for deliv- 
erance ; so that in adopting his language, we are using words put 
by the Holy Ghost upon his hps ; and may rest assured that all 
his utterances convey lessons of Divine instruction recorded for 
our benefit. 

Observe, then, the extraordinary plea for pardon which he pre- 
sents before God. When we plead for pardon from a fellow- 
being, it is our endeavor to palliate our offence, to seek to make 
it appear less heinous than it seems to be. When the friends of 
a condemned criminal apply for executive clemency to the Gov- 
ernor, they hunt up all the extenuating circumstances to show 
that the man was not as bad as he seemed to be at the time he 
was seutenced. 

How different David's plea : " O Lord, pardon mine iniquity, 
because it is greatP I am not a little sinner, but a great sinner. 
I have broken all Thy commandments. In me there is nothing 
good. Pardon mine iniquity, for it is great. J^ow, as no man 
not divinely guided would ever have thought of presenting such 
a plea as this, we must conclude that the Holy Spirit dictated 
this prayer, because God will admit it as a valid plea offered by 
any sinner who comes to Him for pardon. 

Observe, in the next place, the ground upon which he bases 
his plea. " For Thy name's sake." David had not, as we have, 
a clear and full revelation of the plan of redemption throngh 
Jesus Christ ; and he could not have explained the rationale of 
the mode by which God can be just and be a justifier of the 
ungodly ; but he looked back over the history of the chosen 
people, and saw that in all His dealings with them God's mercy 
had been conspicuous. He remembered that when Moses had 
besought God to show him His glory, He had announced Himself 
by this name : " The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious ; 
keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, 
and sin." And he reminds God of His great name, and ground- 
ing his plea on the character of God himself, as revealed of old, 
appeals to Him to be consistent with Himself, and for the sake 
of the glory of His own great name to answer his prayers for 
acceptance. He makes no promise of amendment. He derives 



PARDON. 



91 



no hope from anything he can do in the future. He feels that 
he can make no reparation to the broken law ; that he cannot 
atone for the sins he has committed. He cannot blot out his 
past record, and he casts himself solely on the mercy of God. 
Although he had but a dim insight into the means of pardon 
through the righteousness of the Messiah to come, yet he prayed 
up to the light which he had, believing that God would graciously 
incline His ear. 

The great doctrine which the Holy Ghost, who inspired this 
prayer, would have us derive from it is this : That if a sinner 
applies in the right way for pardon, the greatness or enormity of 
his sin constitutes no obstacle in the way of his receiving pardon. 

The question of the greatest importance in this connection is, 
what is the right way in which to approach God to sue for par- 
don ? I answer : 

1. There must be a consciousness of real need of mercy. For 
those who do not experience this deep necessity of a Saviour, 
there is practically no Saviour. 

'No man ever calls out for help unless he is conscious of the 
helplessness of his case. He must realize that he is a wretch un- 
done without the interposition of a Divine helper to save him. 

2. He must feel that he does not deserve any mercy, that he is 
totally unworthy to receive anything from God but the merited 
punishment of his sins. This sense of unworthiness, and this 
self-condemnation, were what characterized the publican who 
would not so much as lift up his eyes toward heaven, but stood 
smiting on his breast and saying, " God, be merciful to me, a 
sinner." 

3. The man who truly comes to God for pardon, must totally 
abandon all reliance upon himseK. This renunciation of self-de- 
pendence is the most difficult of all lessons to learn, li the sin- 
ner could only be induced at first and at once to believe that 
nothing he can do will render his offended Maker more placable 
than He is already, more than half the work of his salvation 
would be accomplished. But he cannot divest himself of the 
idea that he must have some hand in the matter. Oh, if I could 
only convince you that the work of your redemption can in no 



92 



PARDON. 



way be aided by your own efforts, I should know that it would 
not be many days or hours before you would be rejoicing in 
having found peace with God. But as long as you undertake to 
be your own saviour, how can Christ be of any use to you? 
Paul says Christ is of none effect to those who seek for justifica- 
tion by the works of the law, David evidently derived no hope 
from his performance of even those ceremonial rites which were 
prescribed by God in the worship of the sanctuary. He says : 
" Thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it ; Thou delightest 
not in burnt-offerings." As if he had said, There is nothing I 
would not do to gain Thy favor, no costly oblation or expensive 
sacrifice I would not offer ; but I know all this would be unavail- 
ing to propitiate the offended Majesty of heaven. 

' ' Just as I am, and waiting not, 
To rid my soul of one dark blot, 
To Thee, wbose blood can cleanse each spot, 
O Lamb of God, I come." 

4. The fulfilment of this negative condition in a genuine ap- 
plication to God for pardon will inevitably lead to the fulfilment 
of a fourth and positive condition ; viz., a coming to Him in the 
name of Christ. This coming to God through Christ, is simply 
coming to Christ himself. The forms in which this act of the 
soul is described in Scripture are very various, and all equally ex- 
pressive of the idea of going out of one's self to find help in 
another. Looking to, as the dying Israelite looked at the brazen 
serpent in the wilderness ; receiving, as one who receives with 
pleasure the friend who knocks at his door ; eating, as one appro- 
priates food for his nourishment ; coming to, as one goes to meet 
one whom he loves, or seeks one in whose ability to relieve him he 
has confidence ; embracing, as one throws his arms around a 
strong swimmer who has leaped into the water to save him ; flee- 
ing unto, as the Israelite fled to the city of refuge to escape from 
the blood avenger ; laying hold of, as one grasps a friendly hand 
stretched ont to him in the hour of peril — all these are only 
strong figures, intended by the Spirit of God to convey to our 
minds what is meant by believing on Christ to the salvation of 



PARDON, 



93 



the soul. They are intended to turn the mind of the sinner 
away from himself, and to encourage him to put his trust in One 
mighty to save. 

Ah ! but just here lies his difficulty. He may be convinced of his 
, ill-desert, his helplessness, and his inability to do aught to secure 
the favor of God ; but he finds it hard to believe that this simple 
act of reliance on Christ can secure the boon of pardon, and 
bring peace to his tortured soul. This difficulty experienced by 
every awakened sinner, God foresaw, and to meet it has conde- 
scended to set forth in every possible form the great doctrine that 
He does not desire the death of the sinner, and that the remedy 
He offers him in Clirist is the very remedy which, being pro- 
vided by Himself, must be the only one adapted to meet the 
necessities of the case. Hence all the lessons of His Word, all 
the ministrations of prophet and priest under the Old Testament, 
and of Apostle and Evangelist under the J^ew, are aimed at the 
one single object of inducing the sinner to put his confidence in 
One mighty to save. The Prophet Isaiah looking down over the 
lapse of centuries, and catching a vivid view of the coming Mes- 
siah as He makes triumphal progress on His mission of redeem- 
ing mercy, cries out, Who is this that cometh from Edom, with 
dyed garments from Bozrah ? This that is glorious in his ap- 
parel, travelling in the greatness of his strength ? " And the 
answer comes back to him, as if uttered from the cross of His 
triumphant agony, ^'I that speak in righteousness, mighty to 
save." Yes, it is because He is mighty to save that every sinner 
may, witliout hesitation, put his trust in Him. And the Apostle 
Paul, with sublime confidence in the divine power of the great 
Eedeemer to whom he owed his own deliverance, declares, " This 
is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ 
Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief 
while the Apostle John, taking up the words of the glorious 
evangel, extends the offer of pardon to all mankind in the cath- 
olic utterance, " And He is the propitiation not for our sins only, 
but also for the sins of the whole world." 

Who is this Jesus that invites all men to come to Him ? Who 
is this man that challenges the world to heave its mighty mass of 



94 



PARDON. 



guilt upon His shoulders ? "Whicli of the angels would dare ex- 
pose himself to the perils of bearing such a heavy load ? It is 
none other than He upon whom God laid our help, mighty to 
save ; a Being who had no sins of His own to bear ; a Being 
above all law, who had no obedience to render ; a Being of infi- 
nite dignity, whose voluntary obedience outweighs our disobedi- 
ence, and whose voluntary death for us more than pays the ])en- 
alty due to a world of sinful men. Take the sins of all the 
saints, and also all the sins of all the sinners in the world, 
and lay them on Him, and you could not exhaust His power 
to bear them. Lifting His mighty shoulders under the incum- 
bent load, He would not fail nor be discouraged," but " cast 
them all into the depths of the sea." Can you not afford to 
trust a Saviour like this ? Are you alone, of all the world of 
sinners, so vile a transgressor that " He whom God has highly ex- 
alted with His right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour for to 
give repentance and forgiveness of sins," cannot reach the ex- 
tremity of your case ? 

I tell you that if you fulfil the conditions which I have been 
explaining, the greatness of your sin cannot stand in the way of 
your pardon. 

One of the most common forms of unbelief directly injected 
into the mind by Satan may be expressed thus : " It is true that 
Christ died for sinners, but not for me. Mine is a peculiar case ; 
there is no one sinner whose state is like mine." Therefore 
when I offer you Jesus Christ as a Saviour, I know you say to 
yourself, " E'ow that man does not know what sort of a sinner I 
am ; if he did, he would see that Christ does not meet my par- 
ticular case." 

One of you is saying : " I am an old sinner ; I have slighted 
the Gospel all my life ; I fear God will not accept the poor ser- 
vice which I can render Him during the remnant of my misera- 
ble, wasted life." 

Well, to this I reply that God does not accept men for the sake 
of the work they do for Him ; He saves men for the sake of 
glorifying His own abounding mercy. And in order to show 
that age is no obstacle in His way, He has recorded in the Bible 



PARDON. 



95 



the story of the conversion and pardon of a very old sinner. 
Manasseh was a very wicked king, even doAvn to old age. An 
idolater, a man of ^-iolence and blood, in his old age he repented, 
was pardoned, and saved. Old men are less likely to turn to 
God than young men ; but if they do, their age and their accu- 
mulated crimes are no impediment to their acceptance. 

Another is sapng : " I have sinned with peculiar aggravations 
to my guilt. I once was numbered among Christians ; my name 
was on a church roll ; I often led God's people in prayer ; but, 
alas ! I disgraced my profession ; I am a backslider ; I never 
pray, nor read my Bible, nor go to church, nor do any pious act ; 
I have cast God away, and I fear He has cast me off forever." 
But you are not the first backslider, and you need not remain a 
backslider forever. " Take with you words and turn to the Lord 
and say unto Him, Take away all iniquity and receive us gra- 
ciously." Hear what He says in answer to this prayer : I will 
heal your backsliding ; I will love you freely." li you were 
mistaken in thinking you were a Christian before, and never did 
truly come to Him, come now, and you will see how freely Jesus 
can forgive. 

Here, perhaps, is another, some trusting woman, betrayed in 
the innocence and ignorance of her youth, and cast off by her 
father and mother, and abandoned to " the tender mercies of the 
wicked," and only those who have ex]3erienced them can tell 
how cruel they are. She has come here and heard of Jesus, and 
she wants to love Him and cast herself on His bosom ; but she is 
" such a wicked sinner" and " knows herself to be the vilest of 
the vile," and " don't see how He ever can forgive her." 

Oh, let me tell you, it is because I got your letter and did not 
know how else to answer it, that I am preaching this plain sermon 
for you this afternoon."^ 

* This sermon, preached in the afternoon service in the Music Hall in Cin- 
cinnati, was occasioned by Dr. Pratt's receiving an anonymous letter from 
" a woman who was a sinner," evidently under deep conviction of sin, hut 
whom he could only answer in this public way. Like the woman in the 
Bible, nothing more was heard of this woman, but may we not hope that the 
same Spirit who prompted the letter also led her to hear its answer and 
accept her Saviour 2 



96 



PAEDON, 



Don't you remember the story of the " woman of the city who 
was a sinner," who wept on the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet 
with the hairs of her head ? You remember His loving words 
to her, how He said, " Her sins, which are many, are forgiven." 
Ah ! if you will only truly come to Him, you need not fear that 
He will repel you. 

We never read anything more about this woman who was a 
sinner ; she sunk into social obscurity, and probably never was 
recognized by respectable society in her city ; but what of that ? 
She was forgiven. And now she is in the society of Jesus and 
among the spirits of the just made perfect in heaven. This 
Gospel which I am commissioned to preach would be a failure if 
it could not avail for such a case as yours. 

Thus I might describe every class of sinners in this Hall, and 
show it is adapted to all. Oh ! then stay no longer away from 
Him who came to call not the righteous, but sinners to repent- 
ance. With all your guilt and helplessness fall down at His feet, 
crying out, ^' For Thy name's sake, O Lord ! pardon mine ini- 
quity, for it is great." 



IX. 

LOOK AND LITE. 

"And as Moses lifted up tlie serpent in the wilderness, even so must the 
Son of Man be lifted up; that whosoever belie veth in Him should not perish, 
but have everlasting life." — John iii. 14, 15. 

There are some things so vast that the words which stand for 
them do not, when uttered, produce the conception of them in 
our minds. Take the word ocean as an example. How few of 
its marks do we reahze in consciousness when we utter the word ! 
Its vast extent; its bottomless depth; its currents; its tide- 
waves ; its storms ; its monsoons ; its cyclones ; its typhoons ; its 
coral islands and reefs ; its icebergs ; its immense meadows of 
seaweed ; its deep abysses teeming with animal life ; its sea- 
urchins, and starfishes with their thousand strange forms and 
tints; its yellow, green, and purple-striped limpets; its jelly- 
fishes, floating softly like spirits of the deep; its cuttle-fish, 
decked in all the colors of the rainbow ; all its wondrous fauna 
crowded into the crystal waters of the tropics ; or its whales and 
seals and countless lower animals swarming in its polar seas — 
how few of all these things we think of when we talk about the 
ocean ! 

"We pass words that mean big things, just as merchants pass 
bank-notes of immense value with the same ease that they handle 
small coin, never thinking of their prodigious significance. I 
have alluded to this ease with which we use words that denote 
stupendous things, to excuse what may seem criminal levity in 
men, when they talk with comparative indifference of the great 
things revealed to us in this Word of God. Thus the text speaks 
of " everlasting life " and the way to get it. Perhaps some of 
you are already disappointed as you think I am going to preach 

(97) 



98 



LOOK AND LIVE, 



only about everlasting life. If so, I am not surprised. I do not 
think it strange that you, with your vague and dreamy notions of 
eternal life, should be more interested in the life that now is, than 
in that shadowy life which is to come. But while I make this 
concession to your spiritual stupidity, I warn you that this in- 
difference is madness and ruin. 

Let me, then, try to expand your conceptions of what the Bible 
means by " everlasting life." 

1. Eternal life is said to be the " gift of God " — the best thing 
that God with His infinite resources can confer upon man. You 
put a locked casket in my hands and tell me a merchant-prince 
has sent it to me ; but I am not to open it for ten years ; that it 
contains, in his judgment, the richest present that he, with all 
his wealth, can bestow upon me ; that he has searched the world 
for it, and spent an immense sum in procuring it for me. Would 
I not be a fool if I should throw it away or despise it ? Just 
such a gift is everlasting life. " God so loved the world that," at 
an infinite sacrifice, " He gave His only begotten Son, that who- 
soever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting 
life." God knows what it is worth ; and if He thinks it of un- 
speakable value, is there not enough in this single fact to lead 
you to think it worth striving for? 

2. But eternal Kfe is the opposite of eternal death. Ah ! if 
you could form any conception of what it is to be damned, to be 
shut up forever in the same dungeon with thieves, murderers, 
adulterers, blasphemers, — the foul, the impure, the obscene, — 
to range wildly around the vast caverns of hell, and meet no 
friends, see no smile of love, hear no voice of joy ; to be haunted 
by the sighing and wailing of anguished spirits ; to roam at large 
with raging lusts unsatisfied; to feel the intolerable pangs of 
conscience ; to be actively engaged in hating God and cursing 
Him ; to be making giant strides in malignity, depravity, and 
despair, and daily increasing in capacity for sin and suffering, 
till the woe of the soul is vaster than the wreck of a world ; 
— oh ! I say, to escape from all this even by annihilation, would 
be worth unspeakable effort. If eternal life were nothing but the 
escape from such a destiny, it would be a gift worthy of God. 



LOOK AND LIVE. 



99 



3. But eternal life is no sucli negative thing as a mere escape 
from doom. David says : " In Thy presence is fullness of joy, 
and at Thy right hand are pleasm*es for evermore." In what 
does the fullness of joy of a rational, moral spirit consist ? 

(1.) Man is an intellectual being; and he cannot be happy 
without acquiring knowledge. And what he wants is certain 
knowledge. Hence it is that the " exact sciences," as they are 
called, have such a charm. Whatever else may turn out to be 
false, the mathematician knows that his deductions are everlast- 
ingly true. The sun may burn up, the stars may fall ; but 
amidst the wreck of matter and the crash of worlds it will re- 
main true that " the square of the hypothenuse is equal to the 
sum of the squares of the other sides." 

Now, in the world beyond the grave, every step we shall take 
into the territory of knowledge will be a permanent conquest, an 
everlasting possession. And the soul will exult and revel in the 
certitude of its acquisitions. 

This is eternal life, says our Saviour, to know the true God, 
and Jesus Christ. But we can know (xod only mediately, through 
His works of creation, providence, and redemption, through the 
experience of His gracious work in our hearts, through Christ, 
who is the image of His person, and the fullness of the Godhead 
bodily. If the heavens are telling His glory to us even now, 
what visions of that glory shall we see, when, new-fledged with 
immortal pinions, we shall flit from star to star, unimpeded in 
the study of the Divine astronomy ! 

If all history is a revelation of God's attributes, what splendid 
discoveries shall we make of them, when the veil is torn off 
from all that is now dark, and the promise shall be fulfilled, 
" Thou shalt know hereafter ! " Again, if 

Grod, in the person of His Son, 

Has all His mightiest works outdone 

if, with all our researches, we have not been able to master the 
snblime Theology, what treasures of knowledge shall we amass, 
when the conflict of ages shall be adjusted, and we shall know 
Him even as we are known by Him ! 



100 



LOOK AND LIVE. 



This is eternal life, to know God, — ^to know Him in the miracles 
of creation, in the opened mysteries of providence, and in the 
comprehended marvels of Redemption. 

(2.) Man is essentially an active being. His eternal life must 
consist in doing something. But work here is painful and re- 
pulsive. It is necessary, but it does not bring unmixed good. 
Activity must be spontaneous in order to be a source of happi- 
ness. Let me illustrate : 

Look at a little boy in learning to walk ; see his first efforts to 
keep from falling on the hard floor. He is doing the hardest 
kind of unpleasant work. 

But look at him a few years later on the play-ground. He 
walks, he runs, he leaps, he wrestles. The boy is happy now and 
he laughs in the gladness of his heart. That which was work ia 
DOW play. 

So it will be with us in the eternal world. The restless spirit 
cannot be idle, but its activity will involve no weariness. The 
faculties, trained and disciplined in God's nursery here, will leap 
to joyous activity and free-play in the pleasure-grounds beyond 
the stars. Oh ! how the soul will plume its immortal pinions, and 
like the footless 'fowl of Indian fable, career amidst the fields of 
ether, poising itself upon unwearied wing, and finding in its very 
activity its own end, and aim, and joy. 

(3.) Man is a social being. Hence he seeks intercourse vdth 
others by a law of his nature. But even when the companion- 
ship is most congenial, protracted intercourse clogs his appetite, 
and his weary intellect and jaded affections demand repose. But 
in the intercourse of the unseen world there will be no satiety 
and no weariness. How exhilarating the prospect of constant 
intercourse with spirits whom, bk)oming in immortal vigor, "age 
cannot wither, nor custom stale their infinite variety ! " 

(4.) Man is a moral being, capable of sin and capable of holi- 
ness. E"ow since God, who is supremely holy, is supremely 
happy, it is clear that man's highest bliss, who is made in the 
image of God, must lie in his being holy as God is holy. Ilence 
David cries out, " I shall be satisfied, when I awalie with 
Thy Hkeness," 



LOOK AND LIVE, 



101 



(5.) Onee more : Man is essentially a progressive being. By the 
very constitution of his nature, he must grow in all his powers 
and capacities forever. He must go on from strength to strength. 
Imagination shrinks abashed in the effort to scale the heights to 
which the soul may climb ; and language is powerless to recount 
the possible achievements of a human spirit in its progress toward 
an ever-receding goal. Life in the immortal world shall be none 
other than this — to rise higher and higher toward that height 
which we can never climb, leaving below us a depth which there 
is no line to fathom, while around us stretches an expanse meas- 
ureless as eternity. 

Oh ! this eternal life is a mighty, blessed, glorious thing. It 
is the gift of God and worthy of such a great and glorious giver ; 
it is life given back from a dark and dreadful apostasy, the an- 
tithesis of eternal death ; it is life the inspiration of which is 
boundless knowledge ; it is life which is activity without weari- 
ness, the joyous play of invigorated powers ; it is life in the 
august society of the great and good of all ages ; it is life su- 
premely blissful, because supremely holy ; it is life in all the 
opulence and glory of never-ending growth and expansion. Oh ! 
is not life like this worthy of the aspiration of immortal spirits 
Hke yours ? Now, what must you do that you may inherit eter- 
nal life ? Listen, while I tell you. 

Let us, in imagination, ascend Mount Hor, near whose base are 
encamped the hosts of Israel. The wide extended plain of the 
Arabah stretches out before us to the border of Edom. It is 
dotted aU over with the tents of sleeping Israel. The day is just 
dawning ; and as the eastern belt of the mountains begins to glow 
with the first rays of the morning sun, the Hebrew children stir 
in their tents, and go out to collect the manna, which lies like 
hoar-frost on the ground. But their soul " loatheth this light 
bread "; and the want of water adding thirst to their sufferings, 
they begin to speak against God and against Moses, saying, 
" Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the 
wilderness?" Suddenly a cry is heard. It is echoed and re- 
echoed throughout the vast encampment. " The serpents ! the 
serpents ! " The air is filled with flying, fiery reptiles, whose 



102 



LOOK AND LIVE. 



sting brings angnisli and sudden death. They creep from the 
fissures in the earth ; thej dart out from the clefts of the rocks ; 
they crawl to the pallet where the infant is sleeping ; they coil 
around the limbs of stalwart men ; they pierce the bosoms of 
helpless women, and leave the death-wound behind. The poor 
people are hopeless and helpless. They cannot destroy the ser- 
pents, for they are innumerable ; they have no antidote for the 
strange poison ; they despair, they die. They cry to Moses for 
help. He intercedes for them with God. God commands him 
to erect upon a pole, so that all may see it, the image of the fiery 
serpent carved out of brass ; and the command is issued to all the 
people, " Look upon this brazen serpent and live." " And it came 
to pass that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the 
serpent of brass, he lived." 

Upon what easy terms these poor distressed Hebrews saved 
their lives ! They had only to lift their dying eyes and fix them 
on this image ; and this they might do without money and with- 
out price, and without moving from the spot where they were 
standing. Looking was all they could do. The cure was imme- 
diate. They did not merely begin to get better ; the moment 
they looked they were well. ^Nobody could explain how this 
was. Those who were bitten did not wait that they might un- 
derstand before they looked, how looking could save them. 
They looked first and at once. And if they did not understand 
how it was, afterward, they knew that they were well. 

Now Christ himself declares that in the same way, by looking 
at Him, you may have eternal life. He it is that has prescribed 
the simple condition of believing on Him. " As Moses lifted up 
the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be 
lifted up, that whosoever believeth on Him "; — observe it is " be- 
lieveth," instead of looketh. You see that believing is equiva- 
lent to that eager, longing look, which the dying Israelite would 
cast toward the brazen serpent. Have you never seen the elo- 
quence of a look far exceed the power of speech ? Have you 
never seen the dying man, too weak for words, tell his heart's 
desire, without words, in a look ? Have you never been over- 
come by a wistful look of your little boy, when he looked and 



LOOK AND LIVE. 



103 



looked, but was afraid to say a word lest you should answer " no " ? 
Well now, believing on the Lord Jesus Christ is just that look 
of desire, as the soul sees Jesus Christ set forth in the Gospel. 
" If you can remember how you felt as a little child, while you 
timidly plead by a look, when you dared not utter your wish, and 
you perceive that your present desire for salvation is like that, — 
then this is ' behoving.' " 

Now why should you say, " How can this simple act of faith 
save my soul ? " The efficacy of the act depends on God's ap- 
pointment. Can you not believe that a thing is, without know- 
ing how it is ? 

Let me then hold up before your eyes the antitype of the 
brazen serpent. If any of you are mourning over your guilt and 
are full of anguish, raise your believing eyes to Him who is lift- 
ed up in this assembly, and one look will enable you to dry your 
eyes forever. You who may be groping in darkness, look there 
to be enlightened. You who are weak, look and be strong. 
You who are polluted, look and be pure. You who are hard- 
hearted, look at Him hanging on the tree, and be melted into 
contrition and love. 

You who are agonized with doubts as to whether you are a child 
of God, look and gain a firmer assurance of your adoption. 
Whatever your infirmities or sorrows, or sins, from every part of 
this Hall, oh ! look to Him who is hfted up in the midst of this 
congregation. 

As the serpent was lifted up in the centre of the camp, so 
Christ has been lifted up in the centre of the world, that all eye3 
from east and west, from north and south, might fix on Him. 
There He hangs, and every lacerated vein bleeds balm for the 
healing of the nations. 

And when in your terror or in your agony you cry out, 
" What must I do to be saved ? " from the top of the bloody 
cross, hear the echo, " Be saved," " Look unto me, and be ye 
saved, all ye ends of the earth." While millions of eyes are 
turned thither from all regions of the globe, and millions of 
souls are healed by a look, how like that wondrous scene in the 
wilderness ! And while ten thousand eyes glisten with tears of 



104 



LOOK AND LIVE. 



g*oj as they look and are saved, " How shall you escape if you 
neglect so great salvation ? " Oh ! remember, it is life eternal 
that is staked on this simple act of beheving, and death, eternal 
death, that hangs on your refusal. 

And though you may weary of hearing this oft-repeated, fa- 
miliar story, yet I will follow you with it till you take the final 
plunge into the gulf of despair. So that the last sound you shall 
hear from my Hps while on this side of perdition shall be, " Behold, 
behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away, which taketh away, 
the sin of the world." 



X. 



GEACE EEIGNING. 

" For sin shall not have dominion over you ; for je are not under the law, 
but under grace." — Romans vi. 14. 

Law is a rule of action prescribed by a supreme power com- 
manding what is right, and prohibiting what is wrong, with a 
penalty annexed for its violation. 

The law referred to in the text is the moral law of God. " It is 
a shallow attempt to fritter away the meaning of Scripture to say 
that by ' law ' here, Paul means only the ceremonial law." 
" To be under law means to be under its authority, and under its 
constraining influence. The Apostle means to say we are under 
neither. "We are not only free from its objective authority, but 
from its subjective influence. " f 

The assertion of the Apostle, then, is that believers are not 
under that law which is summarily comprehended in the Ten 
Commandments. 

A very startling statement ! It seems to countenance the 
heresy of John Agricola, who in the middle of the sixteenth cen- 
tury originated the doctrine known as Antinomianism. He 
taught that the law is of no use or obligation under the Gospel 
dispensation ; that good works do not promote our salvation, nor 
do bad ones hinder it ; that repentance is not to be preached 
from the Decalogue, but only from the Gospel. The Antinomian 
sect sprang up in England during the protectorate of Cromwell, 
and extended the system of libertinism much farther than Agric- 
ola did. Some of them maintained that if they should commit 
any kind of sin, it would do them no hurt, nor in the least affect 



* Plumer. 



f Hodge in loco. 
(105) 



106 



GRACE REIGNING. 



their eternal state : — that it is one of the distinguishing charac- 
teristics of the elect that thej cannot do anything displeasing to 
God. Of course such an interpretation is monstrous, especially 
as the Apostle in this very connection is unfolding the doctrine 
of sanctification. 

The subject of the relation of believers to the moral law has 
been the theme of much discussion. The reason of this is, that 
the ISTew Testament seems to contradict itself. Thus we find our 
Lord saying, " Think not that I am come to destroy the Law or 
the Prophets : I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For, ver- 
ily, I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one 
tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. 
Whosoever, therefore, shall break one of these least command- 
ments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the 
kingdom of heaven : but whosoever shall do and teach them, the 
same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." Stronger 
language could not be used to assert the abiding force and obli- 
gation of the law. So, too, we find the Apostles always enforc- 
ing the duties prescribed by the law. Thus the Apostle James 
exhorts the disciples " not to speak evil of the law or to judge it, 
but to fulfil it." The Apostle Paul says, he himself is " under 
the law to Christ and he presses on his converts at Kome and 
in Galatia the exercise of love, on the ground of its being the ful- 
filling of the law." Yet, this same Apostle, in writing to 
Timothy, says, that " the law is not made for a righteous man 
(that is, for the justified believer), but for the lawless and dis- 
obedient, for the ungodly and for sinners," etc. (1 Tim. i. 9). 
And in the Epistle to the Romans (chap. vii. 6), I^ow we are 
delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held, 
that we should serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness 
of the letter." Then the text, " Ye are not under the law, but 
under grace." There must be some way of reconciling state- 
ments so apparently contradictory. Their perfect harmony, I 
hope to make apparent in this discourse. 

In what respect, then, can it be said that believers are free from 
the Moral Law ? 

I answer : 



GRACE REIGNING, 



107 



1. Believers are not under the laio as to the ground of their 
conderanation or justification hefore God. It is not to the law, 
but to Clii'ist, that they ai'e indebted for pardon and life ; and re- 
ceiving these from Him as His gift of grace, thev cannot be 
brought by the law into condemnation and death. The reason is 
that Christ has, by His own pure and spotless obedience, done 
what the law in the hands of fallen humanity could not do. He 
has brought in the everlasting righteousness, which by its infinite 
worth has merited eternal hfe for as many as believe on Him. 
" There is, therefor^e^ now no condemnation to them that are in 
Christ Jesus." Whosoever belie veth upon Him, is justified from 
all things from which ye could not be justified by the law of 
Moses " (Eom. viii. 1 ; Acts xiii. 39). Or in the stronger and 
more comprehensive language of Christ liimself, " He that hear- 
eth my word and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlast- 
ing life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from 
death unto hfe " (John v. 2i). 

It is sometimes said that we, as distinguished from the saints 
under the old dispensation, are delivered from the law as a cov- 
enant of works, and there is an implied contrast between our 
condition and theirs. This language is adapted to mislead ; for 
it seems to imply that as the law certainly formed the basis of a 
covenant with the Old Testament Church, its being so formed 
made it something else than simply a rule of life, and warranted 
the Israelite to look to it in the first instance, at least, for life and 
blessing. This, however, was not the purpose for which the law 
was given as a covenant among the Jews. Deliverance from the 
law, as a rule of condemnation or of justification, marks no essen- 
tial distinction between the case of believers under the Old, and 
that of behevers under the Xew Testament dispensation. That 
is, it was just as true of Abraham and of David that they were not 
under the law, but under grace, as it is true of believers now. 
Strictly speaking, the Church never was under the law as a cov- 
enant. It was only a mistake of the carnal members of the 
Church to suppose so. TTe are just as much under the law now, 
as was any member of the Jewish Church, — no less, no more. 
He was not under the law in the sense that by doing the works 



108 



GRACE REIGNING. 



of the law he could have been justified ; neither are we. He 
was, and we, alike, are naturally under law to God ; and as trans- 
gressors of law liable to punishment. But through the grace of 
God in Christ, we are not so under it, if we have become true 
believers in Him. We have pardon and acceptance through 
faith in His blood ; and even thoitgh in many things offending, 
and in all coming short, yet while faith abides in us, we cannot 
come into condemnation. To this effect are all the passages 
which treat of justification, and declare it to be granted to the 
ungodly as a free gift of grace in Christ, without the deeds of the 
law. 

2. But this is not the only respect in which believers are free 
from the law. In this sixth chapter of Romans, the Apostle dis- 
tinctly teaches that helievers are not %inder the law as to their 
walh and conduct. In this respect also he affirms that we are 
dead to the law and are not under it, but under grace ; the 
grace of God's indwelHng Spirit, whose quickening energy and 
pulse of life take the place of the law's outward prescriptions and 
magisterial authority." The Apostle tells us in other places that 
the "law is not made for the righteous ": that believers "have 
the Spirit of the Lord, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there 
is liberty." Christ says, " If the Son make you free, ye shall be 
free indeed"; i. e., free from the law as a condemning power, 
and free from it as a commanding power. An old divine has 
very forcibly expressed it thus : " Our Lord Jesus put Himself 
under the commanding power of the law, and gave it perfect 
obedience, to deliver His people from under it. God sent forth 
His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them 
that are under the law. That they then should put their necks 
under that yoke again cannot but be highly dishonoring to this 
crucified Christ, who disarmed the law of its thunders, defaced 
the obligation of it as a covenant ; and, as it were, grinded the 
two stones upon which it was wrought to powder." 

I know this will strike some of you as new doctrine. It is, 
however, no newer than Augustine, and Luther, and Calvin. 
But you will ask, " Is not this dangerous doctrine ? Where now 
is the safeguard against sin ? May we not do as we list, oblivious 



GRACE REIGNING. 



109 



of anj distinction between holiness and sin, or even denying its 
existence as regards the children of God, on the ground that 
where no law is, there is no transgression ? The Apostle's 
reply is, God forbid so far from it, freedom from the law 
, has for its sole aim deliverance from '* sin's dominion " and 
fruit unto holiness." Let me -state the doctrine in the language 
of one of the ablest divines of the Free Church of Scotland. 
" The truth fully stated is simply this : When the believer re- 
ceives Christ as the Lord, his Eighteousness, he is not only justi- 
fied by grace, but he comes into a state of grace, or gets grace 
into his heart as a living, reigning, governing principle of life. 
What, however, is this grace, but the Spirit of hfe in Christ 
Jesus ? And this Spirit is emphatically the Holy Spirit : holi- 
ness is the very element of His being and the essential law of 
His working. Every desire He breathes, every feeling He 
awakens, every action He disposes and enables us to perform, is 
according to godliness. And if we are only sufficiently possessed 
of this Spirit, and yield ourselves to His direction and control, 
we no longer need the restraint and discipline of the law : ice 
are free from it, 'because ice are superior to it. Quickened and 
led by the Spirit, we of ourselves love and do the things which 
the law requires." 

Does not natm-e itself teach substantially the same lesson in its 
line of things ? The child, so long as he is a child, must be sub- 
ject to the law of his parents : his safety and well-being depend 
on his being so ; he must on every side be hemmed in, checked, 
and stimulated by that law of his parents ; otherwise mischief 
and destruction will infallibly overtake him. But as he ripens 
toward manhood, he becomes freed from the law, because he no 
longer needs such external discipline and restraint. He is a law 
to himself, putting away childish things, and of his own accord 
acting as the parental authority, had he still been subject to it, 
■would have required and enforced him to do. In a word, the 
mind has become his, from which the parental law proceeded, 
and he has consequently become independent of its outward pre- 
scriptions. And what is it to be under the grace of God's Spirit, 
but to have the mind of God — the mind of Him who gave the 



110 



GRACE REIGNING. 



law simply as a revelation of what was in His heart respecting 
the holiness of His people ? So that the more thej have of the 
one, the less obviously they need the other ; and only require 
to be complete in the grace of the Spirit in order to be rendered 
wholly independent of the bonds and restrictions of the law. 

Or think again of the relation in which a good man stands 
with respect to the laws of his country. In one sense, indeed, he 
is under them ; but in another and higher sense, he is not — ^he is 
above them, and moves along his course freely and without con- 
straint as if they existed not. For what is their proper object 
but to prevent, under severe penalties, the commission of crime ? 
Crime, however, is already the object of his abhorrence ; he 
needs no penalties to keep him from it. He would never harm 
the person or property of his neighbor, though there were not a 
single enactment on the statute-book. His own love of good and 
hatred of evil keep him in the path of rectitude, and not the 
fines, imprisonment, or tortures, which the law hangs around the 
path of the criminal. The law was not made for Mm. 

Precisely so is it with the man who is under grace. The law 
considered as an outward discipline, placing him under a yoke of 
manifold commands and prohibitions, has for him ceased to exist. 
But it has ceased in this respect, only by taking possession of 
Mm in another. It is now within his heart. It is " the law of 
the Spirit of life in his inner man"; emphatically, therefore, 
" the law of liberty his delight is to do it, and it were better 
for him not to live, than to live otherwise than the tenor of the 
law requires. We see in Jesus the perfect exemplar of this free- 
will service to heaven. For while He was made under the law, 
He was so replenished with the Spirit, that He fulfilled it as if 
He fulfilled it not ; it was His very meat to do the will of Him 
who sent Him ; and not more certainly did the law enjoin, than 
He in His inmost soul loved righteousness and hated iniquity. 
Such, also, in a measure, will ever be the case with the devout 
believer on Jesus — in the same measure in which he has received 
of the Master's Spirit. Does the law command him to bear no 
false witness against his neighbor ? He is already so renewed in 
the spirit of his mind, as to speak the truth in his heart and be 



GRACE REIGNING. 



Ill 



ready to swear to Ms own hurt. Does tlie law demand through 
all its precepts supreme love to God and brotherly love to men ? 
Why should this need to be demanded as a matter of law from 
him who has the Eternal Spirit of Love bearing sway within, 
and may therefore be said to live in and breathe an atmosphere 
of love ? Like Paul, he can say with king-like freedom, " I can 
do all things through Christ strengthening me ": even in chains, 
I am free : I choose what God chooses for me : His will in doing 
or suffering, I embrace as my own ; for I have Him working in 
me both to will and to do of His good pleasure. 

It is to this freedom from the law as a command that the 
prophet Jeremiah refers, " After those days, saith the Lord, I 
will put my law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts, 
and will be their God and they shall be my people ; and they 
shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his 
brother, saying, Knoio the Lord ; for I will forgive their iniquity, 
and their sin I will remember no more" (Jer. xxxi. 34). To 
the same intent is the promise of God by the prophet Ezekiel, 
" And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk 
in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments and do them." 

When the Apostle says, " Ye are not under the law," he does 
not teach that the law is abolished. He merely says that, through 
grace, believers are not under it. In one place he exhorts be- 
lievers to "fulfil the law of Christ." Conformity to the law's 
requirements is held forth and inculcated as the very perfection 
of Christian excellence. For it is not as if there were two, — 
the law and the Spirit — contending authorities or forces drawing 
in separate, distinct lines. On the contrary, they are essentially 
and thoroughly agreed — emanations, both of them, of the un- 
changing holiness of Godhead — the one in its outward form and 
character, the other its inward spring and living pulse. What 
the one requires, the other prompts and qualifies to perform. 
And as the law at first came as an handmaid to the previously 
existing " Covenant of Grace," so does it still remain in the 
hand of the Spirit to aid Him in carrying out the objects for 
which He condescends to dwell and act in the bosoms of men. 
The law of the Ten Commandments and the law of the Spirit 



112 



GRACE REIGNING, 



of life in CHrist, both saj, " Do this." But here is the differ- 
ence ; the one says, " Do this, and live the other says, " Live 
and do this." The one says, " Do this/or life "; the other says, 
" Do thisy^cm life." ^ 

If all this is true, the question arises, of what use is the law 
to those who are really under the Spirit ? I answer : the law 
would be of no use, if the work of spiritual renovation were 
perfected in us. But since imperfection still cleaves to the child 
of God, the outward discipline of the law cannot be dispensed 
with. 

There are three different respects in which, although free from 
the law, we need the law. Here again, I quote in part from Dr. 
Fairbairn. 

1. " We need the law to keep us under grace. The law was 
not only our schoolmaster to hring us in the first instance to 
Christ ; but it is now our guardian to heej? us to Christ, by con- 
tinually forcing upon us the conviction that we must in every 
respect be the debtors to grace and grace alone. And just in 
proportion to the clearness with which we discern the breadth 
and spirituality of the law, and our utter inability to meet its 
demands, does it serve this end of driving us for peace and con- 
solation to Christ alone." 

2. " The law is useful to restrain us from the commission of 
sins, either through the power of some lingering lust, or through 
ignorance that they are sins. * By the law is the knowledge of 
sin.' It is true that in the subject of grace there can be no 
habitual inclination to live in sin ; for he is * God's workmanship 
in Christ Jesus, created in Him unto good works '; he ' delights 
in the law of God after the inward man ; but there is a law in 
his members {i. e.^ in his carnal nature), warring against the law 
of his mind '; and the moral law with its discipline comes in 
to supply the imperfections of the spirit and to curb the remain- 
ing tendencies to sin." 

3. " The third use of the law is to hold up before the mind 
a clear representation of the hohness which believers should ever 



* "Marrow on Modern Divinity," p. 174. 



GRACE REIGNING. 



113 



be striving to attain. The law stands before them with its reve- 
lation of holiness, like a faithful and resplendent mirror in which 
they may see without danger of delusion or mistake the perfect 
image of that excellence which they should ever be exhibiting. 
* We are free, — we have the Spirit, and are not subject to bond- 
age.' True, but free, only to act as the servants of Christ : — 
free, but not to introduce anything we please into the service of 
God ; free, but to worship Him only in spirit and in truth ; free, 
but not to withhold from Him that proportion of our annual 
income which He has expected from His Church in all ages ; 
free, but not to observe one day in ten, instead of one in seven 
as a day of sacred rest. If you are really filled with His Spirit, 
the love of God must have been so breathed into your soul as of 
necessity to make it your delight to do whatever you can for His 
glory, and to engage in the services which bring you into near- 
est fellowship with heaven. And the law is of use to tell you what 
to do, in order to do this. It tells you what you cannot know 
by the mere illumination of the Spirit ; but what the sanctifying 
power of the Spirit inclines you to do as soon as you learn from 
the law that this is the will of God." 

'Now, perhaps, you are able to see the difference between the 
law as a command with a penalty attached to its infraction, and 
the law as a rule, or as a guide to Christian conduct. The whole 
moral law as a command is abolished for every believer ; and the 
whole moral law in all its spirituality is in full force as a rule. 
It is said of Luther, that when this truth first dawned on his 
mind, it gave him such relief from the pangs of his tortured 
conscience, "he considered himself as standing at the gate of 
Paradise." A very homely illustration may aid you to grasp 
this distinction more firmly. The law as a command is like the 
rails on a railroad, which force the carriage to keep a certain di- 
rection on penalty of disaster if it flies the track ; the law as a 
rule is like a finger-board at the fork of a turnpike, pointing out 
the right direction, which will be spontaneously followed by the 
traveller who desires to reach his home. 

This doctrine is of the highest importance, and serves to dis- 
tinguish those who are trying to keep the law from a servile fear 



114 



GRACE REIGNING. 



of God's judgments, and those who, not being under a bondage 
of fear, find it " their meat and drink to do the will of their Fa- 
ther in heaven." 

If all believers could apprehend the truth which I have this 
day endeavored to set plainly before you, the whole complex- 
ion of the Church would be changed. It is because so many 
only half believe the doctrine that they go downcast and mourn- 
ing over their religious condition. Show me a line in the J^ew 
Testament that encourages a Christian to entertain for a moment 
a feeling of sadness, or doubt, or despondency. The whole tone 
of New Testament Christian experience is that of jubilant tri- 
umph. Its language is, " Rejoice, and again I say, rejoice." 
" Ah ! " some of you say, " this is addressed to those who can 
find something in their high attainments for which to rejoice." 
I say, ~Ro such thing ; it is addressed to any man who has re^ 
ceived Jesus as his Saviour, before he has made attainments of 
any sort. It was appropriate to the thief on the cross, to the 
jailer of Philippi, to the poor publican as he returned from the 
temple justified rather than the good Pharisee who had made 
high attainments in piety. I say, it is addressed to any one of 
you who has faith in Christ ouly like a grain of mustard-seed. 
Well may you rejoice ; for you are not in the realm of the law ; 
you are in the kingdom of grace. Why do the laws of China 
give you no concern ? Because you owe no allegiance at Pekin. 
In like manner, the moral law ought to inspire you with no 
dread. You owe no allegiance to Sinai. You are in the king- 
dom of grace, and your allegiance is due to Mount Zion. " For ye 
are not come to the mount that might be touched and that burned 
with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the 
sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words : but ye are come 
unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the 
heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, 
to the general assembly and church of the first-born which are 
written in heaven, to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of 
just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the New 
Covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better 
things than that of Abel." This is the glorious kingdom of 



GRACE REIGNim. 



115 



grace— a kingdom which has no law and no penalties — a king- 
dom in which the very name of punishment is excluded from its 
vocabulary, because obedience is spontaneous and love to Christ 
the constraining impulse. Love being the law, His yoke is easy 
and His burden light. 

Now, you see the force of the Apostle's reasoning : " Sin shall 
not have dominion over you ; for ye are not under the law, but 
under grace." A strange reason to the minds of those who do 
not understand the doctrine. " You shall cease to sin, because 
the law commanding you not to sin is, for you, abolished and 
destroyed " ! ! ! The very law which you supposed was ordained 
to deter you from sin is ground to powder. The tables of stone 
are broken a second time ; and yet, says the Apostle, ye shall 
not sin against them. Wonderful paradox of Divine grace! 
And yet as easily explained, as it is superlatively wonderful. For 
the same Spirit of grace, by whose instrumentality alone you have 
been constrained and enabled to receive Christ and thus have 
been transferred from the domain of law into the domain of 
grace, — this same Spirit writes the law anew in your heart, and 
makes you a law unto yourself ; and thus by His quickening and 
sanctifying power constantly operating in you, generates sponta- 
neous obedience to the will of Christ which is in perfect accord 
with the abolished law. 

What need now to remind you to keep the Sabbath holy, when 
a day in His courts is better than a thousand, and you had rather 
be a doorkeeper in the house of God than dwell in the tents of 
wickedness? What need now to enjoin upon you to "have no 
other gods before Him," when the language of your inmost soul 
is : " Whom have I in heaven but Thee ? and there is none upon 
earth that I desire besides Thee " ? What need now to remind 
you that the second Commandment is like unto the first, " Thour 
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," when ye have heard from* 
Christ His new commandment, " that ye love one another " ?' 
What need now to tell you that God has always expected at least 
a tenth of His people's income to be devoted to^ Him when you 
" thus judge that if one died for all, then all died ; and that He 
died for all that they which live should not henceforth Kve unto^ 



116 



GRACE REIGNING. 



themselves, but unto Him that died for them when the Spirit 
of Christ that is in jou prompts jou to sing, 

*' Were the whole realm of nature mine, 
That were a present far too small ; 
Love so amazing-, so Divine, 
Demands my soul, my life, my all "? 

Oh ! brethren, if you only apprehended the full meaning of 
the text, you would be delivered not only from the bondage of 
fear, but from bondage to the world. What a scene of holy 
work for Christ this congregation would present ! What entire 
consecration of everything ! What holy joy ! What a busy em- 
ployment of all the talents ! Not from constraint, but from pure, 
irrepressible, overflowing love to Him who hath redeemed you 
from the curse of the law, and introduced you into the free king- 
dom of grace, and made you not subjects, but " Sons of God." 



1 



XL 



TEUE FEEEDOM. 

"If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." — 
John viii. 36. 

There is no word, the meaning of which is so little under- 
stood, as the word freedom. Thousands are slaves who boast 
that they are freemen. 

In the conversation between our Saviour and the Jews recited 
in this chapter, thej made an empty boast of their descent from 
Abraham, and seemed proud that they were never in bondage to 
any man. Forgetting that they had lost their civil liberties, they 
gloried in the fact that they were not in a state of domestic slav- 
ery. Like thousands among us at the present day, they thought 
that freedom consists in the absence of external restraint — a state 
of irresponsibility to any authority. 'Now this opinion carried 
out to its logical results would make the savage state the perfec- 
tion of liberty, and consequently the highest form of human ex- 
istence. 

To such an erroneous estimate of the true nature of freedom, 
the Scriptures justify us in opposing the grand proposition that 
t?'ue liherty consists in voluntary subjection to legitimate au^ 
thority. 

A child who is subject to his parent whom he loves and whom 
he joyfully obeys, is free in the true sense of the term. 

A wife who yields a loyal obedience to her husband, is also 
free. 

A subject who yields a voluntary homage to his ruler, whether 
he be President or King, or Imperial Despot, is free. 

In his last discourse to the children of Israel, when aU the 

(117) 



118 



TRUE FREEDOM. 



tribes were gathered at Shecliem, Joshua said : " Choose ye this 
day whom ye will serve." They were free to choose, but they 
must choose to serve, to serve either the gods of the Ammonites or 
the God of their fathers. 

True liberty, I repeat it, consists not in freedom from restraint, 
but in voluntary subjection to legitimate authority. 

This definition is apphcable alike to personal liberty and civil 
liberty, and at your leisure you may subject it to the most rigid 
criticism, and you will find that it will stand the test at the bar 
of history, of common sense, and of Scripture. 

Without pausing now to justify this definition, I proceed upon 
the assumption of its soundness. If this definition is correct, if 
liberty in the creature consists in subjection to lawful authority, 
then most men are slaves. Even under the mildest form of civil 
government, men may be, and thousands are, slaves. They may 
be free from physical restraint ; there may be no bodily servitude ; 
but to real freedom they may be entire strangers. This was 
what our Saviour intimated to the Jews when they claimed that 
they had never been in bondage. He distinctly denies their 
proud claim. Passing from the region of the secular, the civil, 
and political, and rising at once to a view of their spiritual con- 
dition, in answer to their indignant demand, " How say est Thou, 
Ye shall he made free?" Jesus answered them, " Yerily, verily, 
I say unto you, whosoever committeth sin is the slave of sin." 

My object in this discourse is to analyze spiritual bondage and 
spiritual freedom, to show you the elements in each, and to lead 
you by the contrast to seek the glorious liberty of the children of 
God. 

Liberty, I have said, consists of two essential elements : First, 
voluntary subjection ; second, subjection to legitimate authority. 
A state or condition in which either of these elements is absent, 
is a state of bondage. Now this state of bondage is the condition 
of all who are not the children of God. 

In the first place, all such persons are in subjection to sin. 
Sin rules in them as the dominant master of all their actions. 
Sin pervades all their purposes. Sin animates all their hopes. 
Sin gives color to all their desires. Sin leavens all their emotions 



TRUE FREEDOM. 



119 



and affections. Sin directs their whole course of conduct ; it 
gives character to every product of their intellect, their imagin- 
ation, and their fancy. Every power of their souls is under the 
dominion of sin. But this subjection is voluntary^ and one of 
the elements of slavery would thus seem to be wanting. For no 
man can say, that when he yields himself up as the servant of 
sin, any power from without coerces his will. Oh no ! it is your 
boast that you are free agents, and this it is that renders your 
bondage to sin not only a misfortune, but a crime. But if your 
servitude to sin is voluntary, how then according to our definition 
can it be called a condition of slavery ? 

I answer, in the first place, because the other element in true 
freedom is wanting. The sinner is the voluntary slave of sin, 
but sin is a usurper / you have voluntarily subjected yourselves 
to an illegitimate authority. What right has sin to claim lord- 
ship over you who belong to God as your rightful Master \ In 
becoming the servants of sin, you have thrown off your allegiance 
to God^ and as He is your only rightful Master, you are slaves. 

But in the second place, in a very important sense, your servi- 
tude to sin is involuntary. That is, it is not engaged in with 
the full consent of all the powers of your nature. Both reason 
and conscience protest against it all the time. In the interval be- 
tween the revels of the passions, reason lifts her voice and tells 
you, sin is folly and madness. Conscience, with still small voice, 
distinct but low, utters her protest against this subjection to sin, 
and declares that it is wrong and ruin. Now the structure of 
man essentially considered, the original constitution of his soul, 
and the design and meaning of that constitution, are not to be 
mistaken. Reason and conscience are his ordained guides ; he 
knows and feels that God ordained them to be his guides, and 
their utterances are in themselves above everything else. Hence 
a created mind whose will acts in obedience to conscience and rea- 
son, rises to the true ideal of a perfect moral being. This is the 
highest freedom ; it is power, it is glory. The will in any being 
is truly free and truly strong, when it is thus determined and 
controlled. 

When, then, the will is in subjection to these ordained author- 



120 



TRUE FREEDOM, 



ities — these vicegerents of God in the soul, the whole man is in 
perfect harmony with the original constitution of his nature, and 
he is free in the highest conceivable sense. But in the unregen- 
erate soul there is a continual schism ; for although reason and 
conscience assert their right to rule supreme, thej can put forth 
no activity out of themselves to control the will. They can only 
present truth and duty to the mind ; they cannot coerce the re- 
bellious will into conformity with their decisions ; and sin, or the 
total depravity of man's nature, gains the mastery, stifles the pro- 
tests, drowns the voices of these heaven-appointed guides, and 
the man is thus bound in chains by sin and becomes his slave. 
In this sense his bondage is a forcible coercion of his nature. If 
by any spiritual legerdemain the service of sin could be made to 
appear reasonable and right, the struggle in the soul would cease, 
and this bondage to sin would lose one of its most bitter ele- 
ments. But since this is impossible, the service of sin will always 
be in one sense involuntary, as long as reason and conscience pro- 
test against it. It is indeojd true that a man may be brought so 
far under the dominion of sin, that he seems to have yielded up 
every power of his soul, so that he seems to take delight in his 
chains ; but it is not necessary to prove that his condition is irk- 
some, in order to prove that it is a real slavery. 

In the third place, the service of sin is a slavery, because no 
man can free himself from it at pleasure. This is the most pain- 
ful and most terrible element in spiritual bondage. To know 
that in one sense you choose it, and to know at the same time 
that even if you try, you cannot shake off your chain — this, 
this is a bondage indeed. Men do resolve again and again, that 
they will free themselves from this tyrant. But after all their 
struggles, he retains his hold upon them. How often has this 
been the case with you, my hearer ! Have you not again and 
again resolved that you would abandon your sinful life and be- 
come virtuous and good, and after frequent and protracted effort 
have you not reached the settled conviction that you are prac- 
tically unable to free yourself from this galling yoke ? Ah ! 
the evil is found, by experience, to lie beyond the reach of the 
convictions of the reason and the demands of the conscience. 



TRUE FREEDOM. 



121 



You have realized, as have all wlio have made similar efforts, 
that sin has possession of your tastes, incHnations, affections, and 
desires; that jou are slaves to sin, because these elements in 
your nature are totally depraved and corrupted. 

^s'ow, as no amount of direct effort on your part can change 
your heart, you can never free yourself from this state of slavery 
any more than the Ethiopian can change his skin or the leopard 
his spots. 

The consciousness of every man authenticates this statement, 
without any appeal to the "Word of God for confirmation. 

Here, then, are all the elements of the most abject slavery. 

First, subjection ; second, involuntary subjection ; thii'd, in- 
voluntary subjection to a usurper; fourth, a subjection from 
which you cannot free yourself; and to render it more bitter 
and degrading still, " involuntary subjection to a usurper, from 
which you cannot free yourself, and yet voluntary to such an 
extent as to render the slave morally guilty for remaining a 
bondman.'' 

This, this Is a slavery from which a man may well groan to be 
free — well might he cry out in the agony of his fruitless strug- 
gles for deliverance, Oh, wretched man that I am ! who shall de- 
liver me from this body of death ? 

This would seem to be enough to justify the declaration that 
most men are slaves ; but this is not all. The slavery to sin is 
only o?ie of the chains which bind the sinner. 

This subjection to a tyrant and usurper brings the man into 
a state of bondage to another, but in this case a legitimate au- 
thority. It brings him directly under a bondage to the law of 
God. Here the authority is legitimate; but the bondage is 
wholly involuntary. In this case the thraldom is that of a 
criminal as contrasted with the freedom of a loyal subject. The 
latter is bound, too, by the law, and as long as he obeys it, he is 
protected by the strong arm of his sovereign in the enjoyment 
of life and liberty, and in the pursuit of happiness. He who 
transgresses that law is bound ; but bound by its penalties. He 
is restrained of his liberty by the prison-walls which the law 
has provided for those who throw off its allegiance. This is the 



122 



TRUE FREEDOM. 



bondage of him who has become the servant of sin. He has 
rendered liimself obnoxious to the penalties of the law which he 
was bound to obey, bj swearing fealty to another and a hostile 
power. He is a traitor under arrest awaiting his trial and his 
doom. He is a captured fugitive, cowering under fear of the 
lash. He is a prisoner on parole ; but not set free — a convict 
whom justice may spare from immediate punishment, but against 
whom the law has pronounced the sentence of condemnation. 

]^ow, consider some of the elements of terror in this bondage 
to the Law of God. 

What I wish you to do, is to look steadily at the facts of your 
condition as bondmen under a violated law. 

First. The first fact is that this bondage to the law is a state 
of actual condemnation to an eternal punishment. You act as if 
your case were not yet adjudicated, as if sentence had not yet 
been pronounced against you. But, my hearer, the Scripture de- 
clares that you are condemned already. You seem to think that 
the probation which God gives you is precisely similar to that 
which He gave to Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden ; and 
that you are free to choose for yourselves, whether you shall be 
classed among the loyal subjects of your King, or whether you 
will renounce His authority ; whereas, the very truth is, that you 
are criminals, arrested, tried, convicted, and condemned ; and 
only awaiting the execution of a sentence which has been delayed 
at the sovereign pleasure of God. You stand as if coolly bal- 
ancing in your mind, whether or not you will choose to be lost ; 
whereas the very truth is, that you are already lost. You seem to 
act as if you supposed that you may at any time release yourself 
from captivity to the law of God, and walk forth to freedom 
the moment you choose to signify your willingness to renew 
your oath of allegiance to the Sovereign whose authority you 
have renounced, whose law you have broken ; whereas, if, from 
this hour forward, you should keep the whole law, you would 
still be a condemned criminal and justly exposed to Divine wrath. 
It is because you do not realize this, that you sit here uncon- 
cerned about your spiritual condition. Oh ! if you unconverted 
men and women in this assembly could realize that you are lost 



TRUE FREEDOM. 



123 



sinners^ lost sinners^ sinners upon whom the wrath of God 
is actually abiding — oh ! terrible words ! — the wrath of God ! 
you would be unable to restrain your cries, — you would fill this 
vaulted roof with wailing and lamentation, and prostrate your- 
selves in supplication, crying out, God be merciful to us sinners. 

And this leads me to speak of another element of terror in this 
bondage to the law. 

It is a bondage from which you cannot redeem yourselves. 
You began hfe bankrupt, and every hour of your existence has 
only plunged you deeper into debt. Like those imprisoned for 
debt, the very condition in which you have been placed has pre- 
cluded the possibility of your ever liquidating your obligations. 

Repentance will not free you from this bondage, any more 
than the regrets of the spendthrift will deliver him from the 
debtor's prison. Absolute and complete reformation of life, were 
this possible, will not release you, any more than the payment of 
all your future expenses will settle the debts you have heretofore 
contracted. 

Here, then, is another fact of dreadful import in the sinner's 
bondage to the Law of God — nothing he can do will release him 
from its dreadful penalties. 

Now, men realize these truths with different degrees of dis- 
tinctness at different times. Hence there is a third element in 
this bondage to the law which is more or less operative in making 
it oppressive. In proportion as a man is conscious of his expos- 
ure to the penalty of the law and of his inability to satisfy its 
demands, he is brought under what the Apostle calls a bondage 
of fear. He lives all his lifetime in servile dread of God's vindic- 
tive wrath, or as the Apostle has it, " through fear of death is all 
his lifetime subject to bondage " (Ileb. ii. 15). 

This apprehension of the wrath to come is more vivid at one 
time than at another, but its influence is never wholly absent 
from the soul. It poisons every cup of pleasure, and dashes 
every draught with an element of bitterness ; it is the thorn that 
lies half concealed beneath every rose — the sting that envenoms 
life's happiest hours. It is this fear of death that sits like a 
nightmare upon your spirits and that casts a dark shadow over 



124 



TRUE FREEDOM. 



your whole pathway througli life. It reveals itself on your coun- 
tenances, and even in your gayest hours the shrewd physiog- 
nomist can discern the traces of its presence in the permanent 
lineaments of your faces. They who thus live in bondage to the 
law are aptly described by our Saviour as " weary and heavy 
laden." You often try to shake this burden off ; and when ab- 
sorbed in business or intoxicated with the pleasures of life, you 
do succeed in forgetting it for a moment; but when released 
from the struggles of the market and the toils of the counting- 
room, you sit down to calm reflection ; or when suddenly arrested 
by the death of some one whom God has struck down either in 
His love or His wrath, this fear of death and of coming judgment 
casts a shadow upon your souls. 

Here, then, are the three prominent features in the sinner's 
bondage to the law : 

{a.) Present condemnation and consequent exposure to instant 
wrath. 

(b.) Utter inability to redeem himself. 

(<?.) Servile dread of death and its consequences. 

Here, then, is a tlireefold bondage of the unregenerate and un- 
f orgiven sinner — a slavery to sin, to the law, and to the fear of 
death. 

Have I not proved the proposition with which I began, that 
most men are slaves? Let us now contrast with this wretched 
condition the glorious liberty of the children of God. 

From this slavery the Son of God came to set us all free. If 
the . Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free in- 
deed, free indeed ; i. the freedom which the Son gives in- 
volves all the elements of true freedom. This freedom is not 
a condition of irresponsibility, or of exemption from the claims 
of law ; but it consists essentially in a voluntary subjection to the 
legitimate sovereign of the soul. It is a freedom which is se- 
cured by the actual dethronement of the usurper, sin, and the 
actual redemption of the sinner from his bondage to the law. 
As our bondage was a twofold bondage to sin and to God's law, 
the freedom which the Son confers is a twofold enfranchisement. 



TRUE FREEDOM. 



125 



The first chain which is knocked off bj the Son is the chain 
of the law. Christ redeems us from the curse of the law, i. e. 
from its condemnation. Hence, says the Apostle, there is there- 
fore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. By- 
nature, we were the children of wrath, but now God has accepted 
us in the beloved. At the very instant at which we became the 
children of God, by faith in Christ, we were redeemed by His 
vicarious atonement from the penalty of the law ; we entered at 
once, on the instant, into a new relation to God ; we came 
under a new dispensation, which is one of grace and pardon. 
"We are no more under the law, but under grace. 

The moment we become united to Christ by believing on Him, 
the penalty of the law, so far as we are concerned, is abrogated 
and the demands of the law upon us are fully satisfied. As the 
debts of a wife must be discharged by her husband ; and as by 
her marriage all her maiden obligations are at once transferred to 
him, so the believer being married to Christ, and having become 
His bride, becomes a "femme comrt^'^ and is no longer respon- 
sible to the law. Says Luther, " Everything which Christ has 
becomes the property of the believing soul. Everything the soul 
has becomes the property of Christ. Christ possesses all blessings 
and eternal life ; these are, therefore, thenceforward the property 
of the soul. The soul has all its iniquities and sins ; these become 
thenceforward the property of Christ. It is then that a blessed 
exchange commences. Christ the Almighty and Eternal taking 
to Himself by the nuptial ring of faith all the sins of the believer, 
those sins are lost and abolished in him ; for no sin dwells before 
His infinite righteousness. Thus by faith the believer's soul is 
delivered from sins and clothed with the eternal righteousness of 
her bridegroom, Christ. Oh, happy union ! the rich, the noble, 
the holy bridegroom takes in marriage his poor, guilty, and de- 
spised spouse, delivers her from every evil, and enriches her with 
the most precious blessings." 

By one single blow Christ, the Son, redeems us from captivity 
to the law, knocks off our chains, opens the prison door, and we 
become as really free from the guilt of sin as if we had never 
sinned at all. This was the freedom of which Isaiah spoke when 



126 



TRUE FREEDOM. 



he represents the great deliverer as saying, " The Spirit of the 
Lord God is upon me, because the Lord hath appointed me to 
preach good tidings unto the meek, to proclaim liberty to the 
captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound." 

This is the first element in the freedom wherewith Christ 
makes His people free. So far as they are concerned, the penalty 
of the law is abolished. 

My Christian brethren, you have heard all this before. Do 
you, however, realize the full import of these truths ? Do you 
know that the true children of God are at this moment as free 
from all liability to punishment as if they had already reached 
their home in heaven ? ISTow, is not this almost too good to be 
true ? But it is true. Hear ! oh hear, ye disconsolate believers, 
hear again the glorious Gospel, the glorious good news., which I 
am commissioned to sound once more in your ears — proclaim it 
to every weeping Christian whom you may meet. There is now., 
i. e., at the present time, no condemnation to them that are in 
Christ Jesus. Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's 
elect ? It is God that hath justified them, who is there to con- 
demn them ? 

Do you believe this, and do you realize this, and yet remain a 
poor, desponding, downcast mourner ? Oh ! the thing is impos- 
sible. I do not mean that it is impossible for you to mourn, 
although you are really pardoned. Many a poor child of God 
does mourn, not because he does not believe this truth, but be- 
cause it is a point he longs to know, — Am I His, or am I not ? 

But what I do mean is, that if you realized what it is to be par- 
doned, if you only knew how full and complete is the transfer of 
your guilt to Jesus, you would dry your tears forever and never 
weep any more. If you only knew the full import of the doc- 
trine ; if you could only realize that God does not half-way jus- 
tify a believer, that He pardons him fully and freely for every 
Bin, and regards him as forever redeemed from the law, you 
would become a joyful, cheerful Christian ; you would return to 
your houses this day with songs and everlasting joy upon your 
heads. 



TRUE FREEDOM. 



127 



But the work of our enfrancliisement would be only partially 
accomplished if Christ freed us only from the curse of the law. 
You remember our bondage is twofold. We were also under 
the dominion of the usurper, sin. i^^ow, to complete the work, 
, Christ fulfils to believers His promise that " sin shall not have 
dominion over them." Christ dethrones this tyrant, unseats this 
usurper by the actual exertion of a, supernatural power in the 
soul. He changes the heart, regenerates the affections, and re- 
leases the will from its bondage to Satan and to sin. This regen- 
eration of the soul is a real, miraculous work, wrought- in the 
bosom of every man whom God has justified in the eye of the 
law. 

By striking off the first chain, Christ freed us from the penalty ; 
by a second blow. He frees us from the power of sin. In the 
first act of justification. He gives us a righteousness without us ; 
in the second, He works a holiness within us. The former is a 
cause of which the latter is an effect ; our justification is effected 
by Christ as a Priest, and has sole reference to the guilt of sin ; 
our sanctification is effected by Him as a King, and has respect 
to the dominion of sin. The former act deprives sin of its 
damning power ; the latter of its reigning power. In the former 
act. He magnifies the law and makes it honorable ; because the 
law has legitimate authority and cannot be set aside ; it must be 
equitably satisfied. As a priest. He makes atonement to its in- 
sulted majesty and buys us out of our captivity. But in the 
latter act. He comes riding as a victorious king to dethrone sin, 
the usurper, and to vindicate His rightful dominion in the soul. 
By sending His Spirit into these hearts. His people, who were 
once the willing slaves of sin, are made His wilhng subjects in 
the day of His power, and He tears them away from the grasp 
of their former tyrant. They are led by Him as captives ; but 
rejoicing captives, voluntary subjects to their rightful Sovereign, 
and thus they enter upon the glorious liberty of the children of 
God. Grace reigns triumphant, and they are free from the power 
of sin. 

This is the triumphant reply which the Apostle gives to all 
Antinomians, and to those who would charge him with Antinomi- 



128 TRUE FREEDOM, 

anism. He declares that those who are justified and thereby 
freed from the penalty of sin, shall be also freed from the domin- 
ion of sin. Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound ? 
God forbid. They who are dead to the guilt of sin shall be pow- 
erfully delivered from its predominant influence. They are not 
now under the law, but under grace ; and therefore they shall 
have that holiness which is not the fruit of the law, but is the re- 
sult of that liberty wherewith Christ hath made His people free. 
Christ has now become the absolute master of their hearts, and 
He promises that He will reign in them by the invincible power 
of victorious grace. 

Being made free from sin, says the Apostle, they become the 
servants of righteousness (Rom. vi. 18). But you ask, If all this 
is true, how do you account for the fact, admitted by all, that 
true believers are liable to sin, and do actually commit grievous 
sin? To this I reply by an illustration. When a tyrant has 
been dethroned, the effects of his misrule are visible long after 
he has ceased to reign. His evil influence is operative for many 
years after his supremacy has been destroyed. 

This, I think, is a fair illustration of the manner in which sin 
dwells in believers long after their deliverance from its bondage. 
It dwells in them as a dethroned, but not as a dead tyrant, who 
is continually warring with the spirit to regain his lost ascend- 
ency. But, blessed be God ! we have His word and promise that 
sin shall never regain his dominion. We shall be kept, by the 
power of God^ not by our own power, through faith unto salva- 
tion. 

Having begun a good work in us. He will perform it until the 
day of Jesus Christ (Phil, i, 6). If the Son therefore shall make 
you free, ye shall be free indeed. 

And now what becomes of the third chain that bound us — 
the fear of death ? Why, that falls off of itself. Oh death, 
where is now thy sting ? The true believer no longer fears this 
once dreaded enemy. He knows indeed, that for a time he 
must yield his body to the grave, but there are no terrors now 
that lie beyond it. His fears have all been conquered by the 



TRUE FREEDOM. 



m 



power of that cross whereon his debt was paid and his sins were 
slain. Death is now to him the gate to endless joy — the way of 
nearest approach to the court of the monarch whom he loves. 
He is no longer a slave, but a son. He obeys because he loves. 
He renders homage, but it is not servile. He walks a freeman, 
an heir of God, within the very palace of his King. He is now 
the brother of the Captain of his salvation, l^ay, he is himself a 
king. His inheritance is incorruptible, undefiled, and fadeth not 
away. He is an heir of God, a joint heir with Jesus Christ. 
The Son has made him free, and he is free indeed. Glorious 
hopes inspire him. He walks the earth erect, and conscious of 
his noble destiny. All things are his. Paul, Apollos, Cephas, 
the world, Hfe, death, things present, things to come, all are his, 
he is Christ's, and Christ is God's. 

He rises superior to the ills of this present life ; he masters 
and triumphs over all the evils of his earthly lot. He reckons 
that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be com- 
pared with the glory that shall follow. He is free because* the 
love of Christ is his constraining motive. He is happy because 
he knows that nothing can separate him from God's love. His 
galling chains have all been broken, and he is now led by the 
cords of love. This is liberty indeed, the glorious liberty of a 
willing subject — a full deliverance from his former bondage con- 
sistent with justice, satisfactory to God, and therefore satisfactory 
to the believer's own conscience. 

'^o longer the slave of sin, his accusing, condemning con- 
science is pacified ; his reason is satisfied, and the old schism in 
his soul is at an end. Being justified, he has peace with God 
and peace with himself. Being renewed, and sanctified although 
only partially, he is filled with spiritual joy. Being adopted as a 
son, he has access to God. He has freedom and enlargement in his 
communion with God. If the Son therefore shall make you 
free, ye shall be free indeed. Now there is no- happier being 
on earth than he whom the truth has thus made free. 

It would be easy to show, if the time would permit, the histor- 
ical as well as the logical connection between spiritual and civil 
freedom. In proportion to the prevalence of these doctrines 



130 



TRUE FREEDOM. 



among a people, will thej demand and secure political liberty. 
No king, no despot, is able to enslave a nation of Christ's free- 
men. Souls emancipated from sin and Satan are not the materi- 
als out of which Eussian serfs and Italian lazzaroni can be made. 
Let men once learn the lesson that the " Son of Man hath power 
on earth to forgive sins," and that they need no priestly interces- 
sor to come between them and their God, and the figment of a 
sin-forgiving church, which for centuries held men in civil as well 
as ecclesiastical bondage, is exploded. It is to the promulgation of 
the great doctrine of our text, and the great system of theology 
which is bound up in it, that we owe the civil liberty which we 
this day enjoy. 

I need not remind you that this is the anniversary of the 
day * on which our fathers rose up in the majesty of insulted 
nature, to vindicate the rights of man. The political prin- 
ciples in the maintenance of which they shed their blood, 
and to which they pledged " their lives, their fortunes, and their 
sacred honor," were the direct outgrowth of their religious con- 
victions — convictions which they inherited from the great lead- 
ers of the Reformation. If you would transmit unimpaired to 
your children the liberties you now enjoy, you must cherish as a 
sacred legacy the faith of your revolutionary sires. Let it then 
be inscribed on your banners, and let it mingle with the shouts 
of a jubilant nation, " If the Son therefore shall make you free, 
ye shall be free indeed." * 



*Preaclied in tlie Music Hall in Cincinnati on Sunday, July 4, 1880. 



XIL 



LIGHT. 

"Te are the light of the world."— Matthew v. 14. 

Our Lord is here addressing His disciples and the multitude 
who had gathered together to listen to His wondrous words of 
truth and grace. It cannot be that He intended to apply what 
He says in this and the preceding verse to all His hearers indis- 
criminately. Many of them were the wicked people, who, after- 
ward, had a hand in His death. Most of those who listened were 
not the salt of the earth, and were far from being in any sense 
the hght of the world. The transition from the general address 
to the whole multitude to the special address to His disciples is 
made at verse eleven, in which He pronounces a benediction 
upon those who suffer for His sake. Ye who in your poverty 
have hungered for and obtained righteousness; ye who have 
been addressed as having, like the prophets before you, the in- 
gratitude, scorn, and persecution of the world as your earthly re- 
ward ; ye who correspond in character with those whom I have 
just pronounced "blessed," "ye are the light of the world." In 
another place Christ says of Himself, " I am the light of the 
world," and in the Old Testament prophecies He is called the 
"Sun of Eighteousness"; and the aged Simeon, when holding 
Him an infant in his arms, describes Him as a " light to lighten 
the Gentiles." 

In what senses, then, does Christ compare His disciples to 
light? 

I. Light is the appropriate emblem of purity. Of all the 
works of God, none approaches hght in its freedom from every- 
thing like impurity. Philosophy tells us that it may be analyzed 



132 



LIGHT, 



60 as to exhibit in its component rajs the colors of the rainbow ; 
but even these are free from all appearance of defilement. We 
speak of pure, white light. Poetry uses it as the emblem of un- 
approachable, immaculate innocence. It contracts no stain from 
the foulness of any medium through which it may pass, nor does 
it pollute anything upon which it may fall. Even the purest 
water may be rendered foul and unfit for use ; the air of heaven 
may be tainted with unwholesome vapors ; and thus both air and 
water may become the vehicle of disease and the cause of death ; 
but light emerges from the medium through which it passes as 
unsullied and inoffensive as when it first gushed forth from the 
orb in which it originated. 

It falls on the petals of the lily, and leaves no stain upon their 
velvety surface ; it falls on the damask of the rose, and it blushes 
in unsullied beauty ; it kisses the fair cheek of the maiden, and 
her virgin purity is un defiled ; it falls on the black cloud, and, 
lo ! it becomes a radiant glory ; it falls on the dark, blue moun- 
tains, and the far-ofi heights are clothed in untarnished gold ; it 
falls on the dew-drop, and the green sward is decked with spark- 
ling gems ; it falls on the cataract as the dark waters plunge iuto 
the abyss, and the white foam reflects it back to the eye of the 
beholder, unsullied by the contact. 

Thus light is a beautiful emblem of that moral purity which 
contracts no stain from contact with pollution, and which lends 
its own lustre to whatever comes within the range of its benign 
influence. 

II. Light is used as an emblem of hnowledge. Ignorance is 
likened to darkness. As those who are in the dark see not, and 
consequently know not the objects which surround them ; and as 
those who walk in the light have a clear perception of external 
objects, the figure is eminently appropriate. Says Isaiah : " To 
the law and to the testimony ; if they speak not according to this 
word, it is because there is no light in them i. e.^ they are des- 
titute of knowledge. So the Psalmist says : " The entrance of 
Thy words giveth lighV^; ^. knowledge. So Solomon says: 
"The commandment is a lamp, the law is ligJiV ; i. e., the 



LIGHT, 



133 



source of knowledge. So Isaiah, speaking of those who obscure 
the truth bj the teaching of error, says that they " put darkness 
for lights Light and understanding were found in Daniel ; i. e., 
he had knowledge and discernment. The knowledge of God is 
called by the Apostle, " the light of the knowledge of the glory 
of God." " To walk in the hght " is equivalent to knowing the 
truth ; " to have the eyes of the understanding enlightened," is 
equivalent to having the understanding illuminated with spiritual 
knowledge. 

IN'ow, the appropriateness of this emblem is manifest from the 
fact that most of our knowledge of the external world comes to 
us through the agency of light. The ideas which we have of 
form, though to some extent produced by the sense of touch, are 
mainly due to the sense of sight. All our ideas of color and of 
material beauty are derived solely through the instrumentality of 
light. In the beautiful language of Dr. March, " The pupil of 
the eye is the portal through which light brings in all the riches 
and glories of the earth and heavens to adorn the inner chamber 
of the soul. The mind sits enthroned as a sovereign in its secret 
place, and this swift-winged messenger comes flying with intelli- 
gence from every point in the whole landscape, and from the 
far-distant orbs of heaven. The mind has only to lift the cur- 
tain of the eye, and millions of bright heralds rush in to describe 
the form and hue and order of everything in the world of vision. 
Some of the messengers have brought their tidings in an instant, 
and some have been on the way a million of years to tell me 
where of old the breath of God blew a million of suns into flame, 
and sent them forth to sing and shine among the rival spheres of 
heaven. And as I stand gazing from some giddy height, it is as 
if all this vast and varied scene were the creation of light itself. 
Take from me the faculty of vision, or, what would be the same 
thing, destroy the light, and in place of all that wondrous world 
of beauty, a blank and pitiless waU of darkness shuts me in on 
every side." 

III. Light is a symbol of activity. 

Is it possible to conceive of anything more subtle and active 



134 



LIGHT. 



than a beam of light as emitted from the sun ? Philosophers 
tell us that light travels at the rate of one hundred and ninety 
thousand miles in a second. But it is not only the rapidity with 
which it travels that conveys the idea of its activity, but the 
fact that its very existence as light depends upon its rapid prog- 
ress from one point to another. If it could be conceived of as 
pausing in its rapid flight, it would lose its character as light. 
When it falls on a black surface that absorbs it, and thus termi- 
nates its passage, it terminates its existence, it ceases to he light 
— it becomes darkness. So, too, a luminous body, like the sun, 
or a candle, would cease to be a light the very moment that the 
rays which stream forth from it should cease to pulsate through 
the air. Thus, whether we think of light as an emanation from 
a luminous orb, or of the orb itself, it suggests the idea of rest- 
less, unwearied activity and action. 

Follow in imagination a single beam as emitted from the sun. 
With inconceivable velocity it begins its excursion into the un- 
limited fields of space. It flies in a right line toward our earth ; 
it touches our atmosphere and is at once refracted, but not delayed 
in its mission. Turned aside from its direct line of approach, it 
still hurries on until it reaches its goal. It touches the summit of 
the hills, and then leaps down to the valley ; it glances upon the 
pale stream, and gilds it " with a heavenly alchemy reflected 
from the flashing waters, it leaps up again with undrooping ac- 
tivity to gladden the eye of man, or to " kiss with golden lip the 
meadow green." 

By a natural transition from light itself as an object of thought 
to its effects upon nature and upon all living things, it suggests 
still more vividly the idea of activity, in that it is the cause of all 
activity in men and animals. 

Every morning we see the magic influence of light in waking 
the drowsy world to life and motion. All is stillness and repose ; 
but the sun pours a tide of glory over nature, and the gloom and 
horror of the darkness vanish. The early lark begins to carol 
to the rising day ; the squirrel leaps from bough to bough ; low- 
ing herds welcome the growing light ; the blushing morn peeps 
through the windows of human habitations, and then the smoke 



LIGHT. 



135 



of farm-houses rises on the distant landscapes ; the silent sea of 
still life in the great city begins to heave and roar with the rising 
waves of toil and traffic ; the prattle of children mingles with 
the clatter of wheels and the cry of busy men. All is activity 
now, where but an hour before the stillness of mimic death 
reigned supreme. 

Thus light in its source, in itself, or in its effects, is an appro- 
priate emblem of life, energy, action. 

lY. Light is a symbol of unity. 

The discoveries and generalizations of modern science have re- 
vealed beyond a shadow of a doubt that all force has its origin, 
i. e. its ultimate origin, in the heat of the sun ; and what is true 
of heat is true of light, which always accompanies the produc- 
tion of heat. Thus, to take a representative case : " I hold in my 
hand a lock of cotton, which I ignite ; it bursts into flame, 
and yields a definite amount of heat and light. I^^ow, precisely 
that amount of heat and light was abstracted from the sun in 
order to form that bit of cotton. This is a type of the whole. 
Every tree, every combustible substance capable of yielding light 
grows and flourishes by the grace and bounty of the one central 
source of light. The very lightning is his transmuted blaze. 
Every fire that burns, and every flame that glows, every flicker- 
ing taper dispenses light which originally came from the 
sun." ^ 

Thus it is literally true that a grand unity exists among all the 
various forms in which light appears to illuminate the darkness 
of our world. It is the self-same ethereal essence that. Proteus- 
like, assumes a million shapes and hues. Hence, we speak of 
" the light " as of a common possession of all ages, races, con- 
tinents, and generations. The light which God called into being 
at the beginning by His potent word, is the one unebbing flood 
of glory that has been bathing the world in radiance since order 
was evoked from chaos. 

Thus light is a symbol of unity. 

* Tyndall. 



136 



LIGHT. 



Y. This, however, does not exhaust the catalogue of concep- 
tions of what it is the emblem. 

Light is the symbol of leneficence and 'benedictions. It were 
an endless task to enumerate the myriad blessings to man of 
which light is the cause and source. It fills our homes with joy 
and gladness ; it reveals to us the smile of love, the tender look 
of affection, the gushing tear of sympathy ; it is the one indis- 
pensable instrument of aU human activity ; it brings us into con- 
tact with the whole external world, and makes it available for 
our wants and comforts. In a perfectly scientific as well as a 
poetical sense, it is the source and producer of life. To appre- 
ciate the blessings which light confers, we have only to picture 
the effect of its sudden extinction. Where there is no light, 
there is neither animal nor vegetable life. If the light of the 
sun should be put out, in less than a week all signs of life would 
disappear from the globe. The air would be filled with deluges 
of rain and snow ; the ocean, the lakes, the rivers would become 
as solid as the granite of the mountains ; the whole world would 
become a wilderness of death, ^' seasonless, herbless, treeless, man- 
less, lifeless." 

Lord Byron, in his ''Dream of Darkness," has given us a 
grand and gloomy sketch of the consequences of the supposed 
extinction of the sun — a conception " terrible above all concep- 
tion of known calamity, and too oppressive to the imagination to 
be contemplated with pleasure, even in the faint reflection of 
poetry." 

Hence it is that the presence of light is always employed as a 
synonym of joy, of happiness, of comfort, of warmth, of peace ; 
and its absence, to call up to the imagination the terrible images 
of sorrow, gloom, desolation, suffering, affliction, and hopeless 
despair. 

We need not have recourse to the gloomy dream of the poet, 
which represents the light of heaven extinguished, in order to 
appreciate the blessings which light confers upon mankind. If 
the sources of even our artificial light were destroyed, so that no 
candle or torch could be ignited to banish the darkness from our 
houses and streets, after the sun had sunk below the horizon, the 



LIGHT, 



137 



sum total of human happiness would be immeasurably abridged. 
Let one or two particulars serve as examples of the whole. 

The student could no longer pursue his midnight researches 
into the realms of knowledge ; the lonely watcher by the sick- 
bed would sit with bowed head, and long for the morning ; the 
streets of the great city would be paced with nervous dread by 
those whom business or duty should drive from their darkened 
dwellings ; the mariner would dread his approach to the land 
over a sea upon whose dangerous rocks no Pharos flung its 
beams of warning ; the halls of pleasure would be deserted by 
their gay votaries ; the temples of worship, now open to those 
who would end their Sabbath with sacred songs and holy prayers, 
would be closed at early evening ; in a word, how dull and empty 
would be one-half of our working hours, if even the taper lights 
of our own kindling were irrevocably extinguished ! The cry 
would go up from our whole race to the Giver of every good 
and perfect gift to restore to us light in our dwellings, that there 
might be gladness in our hearts. " Light ! " " light ! " " light ! " 
would be the universal prayer at the hour of evening sacrifice. 

This brief survey of the blessings which light diffuses shows 
us that it is our greatest necessity, and that it is an eminently 
appropriate symbol of beneficence and benedictions. 

Thus we have seen that light is the symbol of jpurity^ of 
Jcnoivledge^ of activity, of unity, and of henefieence. 

Although all these ideas are readily suggested by the word 
light, yet, when our Saviour declares that His followers are the 
light of the world, the reference was probably to the most obvi- 
ous and famihar points of correspondence, and not to those which 
are recondite or latent. Still, we need not, on this account, ex- 
clude from our view those points of analogy which might not at 
first sight have occurred to His hearers. The thought necessarily 
suggested to the mass of His hearers would be that of communi- 
cating knowledge, rectifying error, and dispelling the gloom 
which is inseparable from a state of spiritual ignorance, impljnng 
alienation from the only source of truth and goodness. This 
office was to be performed, this influence exerted, by the follow- 



138 



LIGHT. 



ers of Clirist as individuals and as a bodj. Hence, to tlie Churcli, 
as a whole, or to each individual member of it, the address is ap- 
propriate : " Ye are the light of the world." 

Now, there are one or two ideas remotely suggested by this 
figure, which I wish to present : 

1. Christians are like lights, because lights do not shine for 
their own sake alone. The very end for which a lamp is hghted 
is that it may give light to others. " Light, in order to be valu- 
able, must be seen. The illuminating influence of Christ's disci- 
ples is a nullity, without actual diffusion on their part and actual 
perception of it on the part of others. To claim the character, 
without acting in accordance with it, is as foohsh, says our Sav- 
iour, as to build a tower upon a hill and then expect it to be 
unseen. If, then. Christians are lights, they must, from the very 
nature of the case, shine, i. e. they must be the source of divine 
and saving knowledge to the world ; they must not do anything 
to defeat the very end of their existence by concealing or with- 
holding what they have received, not only for themselves, but for 
the benefit of others." * 

2. A second idea suggested by comparing Christians to a light 
is, that, as the caudle or lamp in the process of giving light is 
itself consumed, so the true disciple consumes himself in the act 
of conferring blessings upon the world. The practical bearing 
of this thought is of immense importance. It brings home to 
every one of you, my brethren, the question : Why has God 
called me out of the world and introduced me into the kingdom of 
His dear Son ? Why has my lot been cast here in this city, this 
centre from which stream forth such stupendous influences, for 
good or for evil, upon our whole land ? Did He send His grace 
into my heart and convert me, that I only might be saved from 
hell ; and did His design stop there ? Am I to lock myself up 
in my safe retreat from the storm of divine wrath, and look out 
calmly through the casement of my fortress, and do nothing to 
save those who are perishing all around me ? Must I make no 
sacrifices for the sake of others 1 Must I permit the Gospel and 



A. Alexander. 



LIGHT. 



139 



its saving ordinances to be dispensed with a niggardly hand, 
when, by effort and self-denial on my part, it may be made the 
power of God unto the salvation of the hundreds who come as 
temporary sojourners in the pleasant places where the lines have 
fallen to me ? I hear you answer, " '^o^ no ; let me be con- 
sumed, let me live without luxury, let me eat the bitter herbs of 
poverty ; but let me not withhold the bread of life from the 
hungry souls that are perishing for lack of knowledge. Let the 
oil in my lamp be all consumed as an offering upon tlie altar of 
my God. Let me make my light to shine, though it be exhausted 
in contributing its feeble blaze to the grand illumination of the 
world." 

3. A third remark I wish to make, is that the illuminating 
influence of the Church as a whole is very much impaired by the 
failure to shine of any of its members, even the most humble and 
obscure. In order to bring this idea prominently before your 
minds, I present a very homely and familiar illustration. There 
are certain parts of many large public halls or churches, under 
the galleries, where it is always too dark to read the Word of 
God or to see the hymn-book at a night service. The Httle dim 
lamps that are hung at long intervals along the galleries are 
utterly insufficient for the purpose of illuminating the house. 
They represent those dimly-burning Christians who give some 
light^ it is true, but not enough to illuminate the circle in which 
God has hung them up to give light to all around. Kow, to 
carry out the illustration, suppose that on some unpropitious 
night, even one of these should go out, or fail to be lighted, do 
you not see that all who sit in that part of the house will be in 
comparative darkness ? Of what avail is it to them that the peo- 
ple or the choir bask in a flood of light ? Their seats are not 
within the bright circle ; and, although they see the light afar 
off, it does not serve to illuminate them. Just so it is with many 
who call themselves Christians. They are the centres of little 
circles of friends, and acquaintances, and relatives, who, having 
had their lot cast among them, are dependent upon them, and 
them alone, for all the light they can ever get — the light of a 
godly example ; the light of a holy conversation ; the light of 



140 



LIGHT. 



devout and prayerful daily habits ; the light of patient submission 
to the will of God ; the light of holy resignation to the ills of 
life, ^^'ow it avails them nothing that these lights shine in other 
dwellings and upon other circles of society. They see these 
lights afar off, but they do not walk in their salutary beams ; 
they sit in darkness and shadow, because those whom God has 
hung up to give them their share of the blessed light of life fail 
to shine upon them. 

4. Although thoughts crowd upon me in this connection, I 
will detain you by only one more remark. Our Saviour says : 
" Ye are the light of the world not, ye ought to be the light of 
the world ; i. e., if ye are my disciples, ye do give light. Here 
then, beloved, is the test and criterion of your discipleship. Ye 
give the world light. If ye are His disciples, ye shine ; for light 
must shine. If ye are His disciples, ye are characterized by the 
purity of which h'ght is the symbol ; ye are the source and fount- 
ain of spiritual knowledge to those who are ignorant ; ye are 
active as the light that glances from the hill-top to the lake ; ye 
are pervaded by the spirit of unity with all God's dear people ; 
yom:* light is the same light as theirs, because drawn from the 
same inexhaustible fountain of Kght ; ye are the cause of bless- 
ings and benedictions to others ; ye are shining not to be seen 
simply, but that others may see by your light ; ye are shining 
not for your own sake, like the phosphorescent glow-worm, but 
ye are consuming yourselves for the good of others. If ye are 
His disciples, your light shines ; it is not obscured by being hid 
under a bushel ; it is not, it cannot be dimly burning, so as only 
to render darkness visible ; ye burn, ye glow, ye shine ; ye pour 
the bright, white light all around you. Oh ! when Christians 
shall all be burning and shining lights, how the world will glow 
with the grand illumination ! You have noticed the lighting of 
the streets in a large city ; how, when the first lamp is lit, it is 
plainly seen and disperses in part the surrounding darkness ; but 
when the second, third, fourth, and all the lamps are lighted, 
light meets light, ray blends with ray, until the whole place is 
illuminated. Thus it is with the spread of Christian light. The 
light of hfe shining from one believer joins and blends with that 



LIGHT. 



141 



of another ; the light of one neighborhood with that of an ad- 
joining one, the Hght of nation with nation, until the whole world 
shall become filled with the light of the glorious Gospel of the 
blessed God. Beloved, prove your discipleship by being in your 
, sphere and in your generation " the hght of the world." 



XIIL 



PEEPARING AN ARK. 

" By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved 
with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house ; by the which he con- 
demned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith." — 
Heb. xi. 7. 

Lamech, the tenth in descent from Adam, was a devout man, 
and his heart was sad on account of the curse that seemed to 
rest on the earth. The birth of a son, which took place 600 
years before the Dehige, broke hke a cheering ray upon his dark 
spirit. He called his name Noah, which signifies rest, saying, 
" This shall comfort us for our work and labor of our hands be- 
cause of the ground which Jehovah hath cursed." After this 
joyous event in the home of Lamech, 500 years roll away before 
we hear anything of Noah himself, and then all that is said of 
him is that he begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. We 
are authorized, however, to believe that during the whole of 
these five centuries his conduct realized the hopes of his father, 
for we are told that Noah " found favor in the eyes of the 
Lord that he was " a just man and perfect in his generations," 
and that he " walked with God." By the command of God, and 
under the direction of infinite v^isdom, he built an ark, by which 
himself and family escaped the ruin of the universal dehige, 
which had been predicted to him 120 years before it came. 
"Without dwelling upon the biography of Noah, which is fami- 
liar to you all, I wish to use the words of the Apostle in refer- 
ence to Noah's faith in " things not seen as yet," to set before 
you some of those " things not seen as yet," which await every 
man ; and to invite you to the exercise of the same wise fore- 
sight by which Noah " saved his house," " condemned the 
(142) 



PREPARING AN ARK, 



143 



world," and "became heir of the righteousness which is by 
faith." 

I remark that the " things not seen as yet," are the greatest 
and most momentous things in human history. 

Most of us live very commonplace and uneventful lives. We 
are born into the world, and our advent occasions no stir, except 
in the immediate circle of our own family ; we grow up, are 
educated, take our places in society, eat, drink, sleep, die, 
and the world moves on, unconscious that we have lived or that 
we have ceased to live. If there is anything striking or import- 
ant in our history, it must be in the future, among the " things 
not seen as yet." Every man feels this to be so, for every man 
is looking forward to the future as containing for him all the 
interest of his existence. I think it may be affirmed as a general 
truth that the great things for mankind, which are not . as yet 
seen, are the greatest things in their history. Some men, even 
in this short life, have experienced truly wonderful things ; their 
histories have been eventful, and well-nigh marvellous ; their 
biographies have surpassed the creations of romance. Yet what 
they have seen will not bear comparison with the things which 
are coming to them, but which are " not seen as yet." Death — 
introduction into the world of spirits — conscious contact with the 
Judge of quick and dead — resurrection from the sleep of centu- 
ries — all the events of individual life, not merely through an age 
or a millennium, but through interminable cycles ; all these 
things are " not seen as yet," but they await every one of us. 
They are in the march of coming events, and they will break in 
upon our horizon in due time. He who controls human affairs 
has appointed the very hour of their advent, and, like the laws of 
nature and the stars of heaven, they will keep their time. When 
destiny strikes their hour, they will be with us. 

Let me enumerate some of the " things not seen as yet " which 
ought to exercise a controlling influence over every thoughtful 
man. 

The results of present labors are among the " things not seen 
as yet." Much of the effort which each one is now making seems a 
useless expenditure of strength. How much mental toil, how much 



144 



PREPARING AN ARK, 



of painful brain-work seems utterly fruitless ! This is especially 
true of labor in the moral vineyard. The apparent hopelessness 
of achieving any great result is constantly exemplified in the 
labors of the preacher of the Gospel. Sabbath after Sabbath he 
presents to men the fruit of his diligent study of the Word of 
God ; and he looks in vain for any result flowing from that v/hich 
has cost him a world of toil. The same remark applies to the 
work of the teacher in the Sabbath-school. Week succeeds week, 
and, so far as he can see, his careful instructions produce no vis- 
ible effect upon the thoughtless girls or boys who are the objects 
of his most earnest solicitation and constant prayers. 

The same thing is true of the anxious parent whose only desire 
for his children is that they may grow up to be Christians. He 
cannot see that they are any more thoughtful or religiously in- 
clined, notwithstanding his daily and hourly solicitude and labor 
on their behalf. 

The same thing is especially true of the student who spends 
his time and energy in the schools in the acquisition of element- 
ary knowledge. He often says : " Of what practical value will 
a knowledge of Greek roots and mathematical formulas be to me 
in the stirring business of life ? " And he is often tempted to 
despair ; and is on the point of relaxing effort, because the way 
seems so long from his present abstract study to any practical re- 
sult. IS'ow in regard to all these forms of activity the results are 
" things not seen as yet." But it is in accordance with a law of 
the constitution of things that every effort thus put forth must 
one day produce its result. The seed sown must one day germ- 
inate. Nothing is really lost. God has ordained an inseparable 
connection between labor and its ultimate reward. And in His 
Word He exhorts us not to become " weary in well doing, for in 
due season we shall reap if we faint not." We are told that " he 
that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubt- 
less come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with 
him." 

IN'ow the real difference that we observe in the lives of men — 
some attaining grand results, and some utterly failing to achieve 
anything great or useful — is in large measure to be attributed to 



PEEPARim AN AUK. 



145 



the influence whicli unseen things have had over them in the 
earlier part of their career. 

Here is a man of varied acquirements and large influence. 
His opinions are eagerly sought for on every question of practical 
interest. His words are weighty and powerful. He is a recog- 
nized force in the Church, or in the State, or in society. He 
carries with him a moral momentum, so that, when he moves, 
masses of men move with him. Gray-headed men, his seniors 
in age, pay him profound respect, and defer to his superior wis- 
dom. Som.ehow or other, this man has acquired a strange mas- 
tery over his fellows. Young men gaze at him, envying the 
proud position he occupies. His competitors for public influence 
ascribe his ascendency to accident or to the capriciousness of the 
popular mind ; and they often wonder that their own fancied 
superiority is disallowed. JS^ow how is this phenomenon to be 
explained ? May not the explanation be sought in his early his- 
tory ? in the patient discipline to which he subjected himself in 
youth ? Many a night has he spent in arduous study, in laying 
up stores of knowledge, in training his mental powers; many a 
stern self-denial has he practiced ; many a time has he had the 
strength of character to forego tasting of the cup of pleasure ; 
many a time has he stopped his ears to the siren song of the 
charmer, in order that he might waste no time while preparing 
for the great business of life. Little by little his store of useful 
knowledge has been acquired. By slow and painful effort his 
muscles have been hardened, and his nerves strung for loftier 
and more illustrious exertions. The great destiny which he has 
reached at last, was a thing " not seen as yet but he had faith 
in the future, he had faith in the well-known laws of human suc- 
cess, and in his preparation for life he was content to " labor and 
to wait." He knew that he was laying foundations deep and 
strong ; and, although he could not foresee the exact proportions of 
the structure which was to arise upon them, he was well assured 
of the great truth, that he who would build up a great and 
sublime destiny, must, in the beginning, be willing to dig de^p, 
and base his foundation on the rock. The things " not seen as yet " 
presented themselves in dim and hazy outline before his imagin- 



146 



PREPARING AN ARK. 



ation, and exercised the same power over him that the actual 
reahtj now has over others. 

In the same spirit the minister of the Gospel labors in his ap- 
propriate field and in fulfilKng the duties of his calling. He 
cannot see any of the fruits of his labors. For years he goes in 
and out before his people, and, to all appearance, his preaching 
makes no mark and leaves no sign. Men come and go ; they 
listen and then seem to forget ; they turn aside for a moment 
from their business or their pleasure, seem for a moment to be 
impressed by the solemn message he delivers, and then they rush 
back again to the world, and become immersed in their business 
or infatuated in the pursuit of vanities. He often is forced to 
cry out, " Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm 
of the Lord revealed 1 " All day long he stretches out his hands 
to a thoughtless and giddy populace that seem bent on rushing 
to destruction. IN^ow, what sustains him in his apparently hope- 
less work ? — His faith in " things not seen as yet." He knows that 
God's Word cannot return unto him void. "As the rain cometh 
down and the snow from heaven and returneth not thither, but 
watereth the earth and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it 
may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall God's 
Word be that goeth forth out of his mouth." 

Truth has a wonderful germinating power. It may lie hidden 
in the soil of the mind for many years, and may seem to be dead 
or hopelessly buried, and yet it will come to life and take root 
and bring forth an abundant harvest. One great doctrine im- 
bedded in the mind of a congregation may slowly produce results 
in quickening spiritual life, in stimulating Christian zeal and ac- 
tivity, in strengthening God's people for suffering, and for doing 
His will, which the superficial and thoughtless hearer of the 
Word did not dream of, as he turned coldly away while it was 
taught or defended in the hearing of the great congregation. 
Hence the minister who seeks for lasting influence over the 
minds of his hearers disregards the popular clamor for what is 
called popular preaching, and endeavors to ground his hearers in 
the great doctrines of the Gospel, content to wait for the far-off 
results which he knows must accrue at last in the deeper and 



PREPARING AN ARK. 



147 



more intelligent piety of his people. He has faith in " things 
not seen as yet." 

There is another class of laborers to whom it is especially im- 
portant to have faith in " things not seen as yet." I refer to 
those who are engaged in the work of teaching in our Sabbath- 
schools. There is a tendency in the Church to esteem lightly 
the influence of the Sunday-school on our children. Many par- 
ents seem indifferent as to whether their children go to or stay 
away from this nursery of the Church. Yet, it is one of the 
most important instrumentalities which God has ever employed 
for the conversion of the young. Now the teacher in the Sunday- 
school is constantly exposed to the temptation of utter discour- 
agement. The children in his class are full of levity and thought- 
lessness ; the most solemn truths seem to produce no impression 
on their minds or hearts. The instruction seems thrown away. 
Not so, however. In after-years those truths will appear in their 
consciousness. The line upon line and the precept upon precept 
have produced an abiding impression upon their character, and 
have insensibly controlled their conduct all along. They have 
been training for usefulness in the Church and in society, at the 
very time that their humble and perhaps obscm^e teacher has 
been lamenting his own lack of skill in imparting religious 
knowledge. Amid so many discouragements as he continually 
encounters, no man, no young woman, needs to be more earnestly 
exhorted to have " faith in things not seen as yet," than the 
modest, unostentatious Sabbath-school teacher. 

These general views of the influence of unseen future things 
on the labors of men are not without value. 

Let me now direct your minds to a closer analysis of the text. 
Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, by faith 
prepared an ark to the saving of his house, and condemned the 
world thereby. 

The unseen thing of which God warned Noah was His deter- 
mination to destroy by a flood the inhabitants of the earth, on 
account of their wickedness. We learn that Noah spent 120 
years in preparing for this catastrophe : that one great object 
which animated him in all his labors was the salvation of his 



148 



PREPARING AN APR. 



family from the impending calamity ; and that, by his conduct, 
he condemned the world — i. e.^ he condemned it by his doctrine, 
by his obedience, by his example, and by his faith in them all. 
And E'oah is held up to us for our imitation. 

But as God has promised that He will not again destroy the 
world with a flood, it is pertinent to inquire how we can imitate 
him ? What are the calamities of which God has warned us, 
for which we ought to spend all our years in preparation ? The 
example of Noah is specially held up for the imitation of Chris- 
tian parents. He " prepared an ark to the saving of his house." 
It was not solely on his own account that he was moved with 
fear. His sons and their wives were the objects of his tenderest 
solicitude. JSTow, there are calamities much more dreadful than 
a flood of waters impending over all our families, which ought to 
move us with fear. Each one of your sons and daughters is a 
sinner ; each one of them must die ; each one of them must 
meet God in judgment, and render a final account for the deeds 
done here in the body. The solemn questions, then, that I pre- 
sent to you to-day are : Are you " preparing an ark for the sav- 
ing of your house " ? Are you training up your cliildren with 
worldly views and expectations ? Are you impressing them with 
the sentiment that success in life, or the accumulation of wealth, 
or prosperous settlements by marriage, or a brilliant social 
career, is the chief end to be aimed at? Do you by your 
current conversation and example lead them to think that you 
regard religion a matter of secondary importance as compared 
with these objects of worldly interest? Is the study of the 
Word of God and of the great doctrines of our faith super- 
seded by their exclusive attention to the study of their school 
books, and by their cultivation of the elegant accomplishments 
that will fit them to shine in society ? Have you relaxed 
the reins of authority over them, so that they do as they please, 
go where they please, choose such associates as they please, and 
indulge themselves without check or restraint ? If any one of 
these suppositions is true, then let me assure you, you are not pre- 
paring an ark for the saving of your house. And yet this is the 
chief end which every parent ought to have in view. It is for 



PREPARING AN ARK. 



149 



this tliat God spares jour life, that you may save your children. 
You have lived long enough for your own good. You have ex- 
hausted all the joy of life ; and now the only pleasure you can have 
is in your offspring. And as the salvation of ^^'oah's house was 
dependent upon him, so the salvation of your families is in your 
hands. God holds you responsible to prepare an ark for their 
saving. 

There are three instruments which God has placed in the 
hands of every parent by means of which he may " prepare an 
ark " for the saving of his house, and these are precept, parental 
authority, and example. 

Under the first of these heads may be ranged the whole work 
of religious instruction ; the cai'ef ul indoctrination of your chil- 
dren in the truths of the Gospel, their learning of the lessons 
for the Sunday-school, their committing to memory the cate- 
chism, and all that invisible teaching which is involved in the 
reiteration of good principles at the table, at the fireside, and in 
the conversations that are held in their presence by the father 
and mother of the family. 

But mere precept without the exercise of parental authority 
and discipline is not enough. Suppose you teach your sons that 
profanity is a sin, and yet permit them to associate with profane 
companions ; or that drunkenness and licentiousness are wrong, 
and yet suffer them to wander about the streets at night without 
your knowing where they are, or what den of infamy they fre- 
quent, how can you expect them to heed your formal lessons on 
virtue ? Suppose you teach yom- daughters that worldHness is a 
sin, and yet yield to their desire to dress in fine clothes and to 
attend balls and dancing parties, and theatres, and other worldly 
places of amusement, how can you expect them to be other than 
frivolous, and worldly, and vain ? You have often felt a sort of 
pitying contempt for that old man Eli, who was so weakly in- 
dulgent to his sons ; whom, although " they made themselves 
vile, he restrained not." But if you do not exercise your pa- 
rental authority in governing your children, how are you any 
better than he ? I hold that as long as a boy or a girl is under 
the paternal roof, it is the father's solemn duty to control them 



150 



PREPARING AN ARK, 



absolutely ; to see tliat they are always at home as soon as the 
gas is lighted in the house, and to compel them to observe all the 
rules of a well-regulated Christian family. I hold that no man 
has a right to engage in any business which will take him away 
from his family at night, or at least that will prevent his having 
an oversight of his sons and daughters. Are there not a suffi- 
cient number of examples of boys reared on the streets at night 
to warn parents of the " things not seen as yet " that await their 
sons if their rightful authority over them is relaxed ? 

But precept enforced by parental authority is not enough to 
secure the desired result, " I do not undervalue a strong and 
decided government in families. 'No family can be rightly 
trained without it. But there is a kind of virtue, my brethren, 
which is not in the rod — the virtue of a truly sanctified life. A 
reign of brute force is much more easily maintained than a reign 
whose power is righteousness and love. There are many who talk 
of the rod as the orthodox symbol of parental duty, who might 
really as well be heathens as Christians ; who only storm about their 
houses with heathenish ferocity ; who lecture, and castigate, and 
threaten, and bruise, and who call this family government. They 
even dare to speak of this as ' the nurture of the Lord.' By no 
such summary process can you dispatch your duties to your chil- 
dren. You are not to be a savage to them, but a father and a 
Christian. Your real aim and study must be to infuse into them 
a new life, and to this end the hfe of God must perpetually reign 
in you. Gathered round you as a family, they are all to be so 
many motives, strong as the love you bear them, to make you 
Christlike in your spirit. It must be seen and felt by them that 
religion is the first thing with you. And it must be first, not in 
words and talk, but visibly first in your love — that which fixes 
your aims, feeds your enjoyments, sanctifies your pleasures, sup- 
ports your trials, satisfies your wants, contents your ambition, 
beautifies and blesses your character. I^o mock piety, no sancti- 
mony of phrase or longfacedness on Sundays will suffice. You 
must live in the light of God, and hold such a spirit in exercise 
as you wish to see translated into your children. You must take 
them into your feelings as a loving and joyous element, ana ue- 



PREPARING AN ARK. 



151 



get, if by the grace of God yon may, the spirit of your own 
heart in theirs. This is Christian education : this is the ' nurture 
of the Lord.' Ah ! how dismal is the contrast of a half worldly 
piety, proposing money as the one good thing of life, stimulating 
ambition for place and show, provoking ill-nature by petulance 
and falsehood, having now and then a religious fit, and when it 
is on, weeping, and exhorting the family to undo all that the life 
has taught them to do ; and then, when the passions have burnt 
out their fire, dropping down again to sleep in the cinders, only 
hoping still that the family will sometime be converted. When 
will men learn that families are inevitably ruined by such train- 
ing as this ? " 

I have said that in order to make your children Christians, 
they must see that religion is the first thing with you. Now let me 
descend to particulars, and show you in what way many of you are 
teaching your children that religion is the very last thing with you. 

Among the most important of the means of grace which God 
has established in His providence is a weekly meeting for prayer. 
Those who are " preparing an ark for the saving of their house " 
are always there. They account it their most precious means of 
grace. E'umbers of you whom I now address are never there, and 
numbers only occasionally. Now, those who only occasionally 
come are just as unspiritual as those who never come at all. A 
duty which may be omitted at the suggestion of caprice or of 
disinclination, ceases to be regarded as a duty at all. Now, what- 
ever the pretext with which you soothe your conscience in regard 
to this omission of duty, the real reason is, you do not want to be 
there. You have no delight in prayer ; you have no confidence 
in the efficacy of prayer, and it is a weariness and disgust to you. 
I am not now speaking of what you yourselves lose, but of the 
baneful influence which this conduct has upon your children. It 
says to them in language louder than words, every time they hear 
the bell summon you to the house of prayer, and see you com- 
placently sitting down in your parlors entertaining company, or 
playing upon the piano, or reading a book or newspaper — it says 
to them, " Your father, your mother, is indifferent to religion ; 
they have no confidence in prayer, no delight in it." The children 



152 



PREPARING AN ARK. 



know the hollo wness of the excuse that you " never go out at 
night," or that you have no one to go with you," and such like 
subterfuges. They know that you do go out at night when you 
want to go, and that whenever you want an escort you can get one. 
They know that there is no family altar in your house, and no 
secret prayer ; they know that they are living in a godless, Christ- 
less home, and that for the saving of that house there is no ark 
preparing ; and therefore they grow up skeptical, like their 
parents, and utterly incredulous as to the " things not seen as 
yet." 1^0 wonder your children are not converted when you, 
in whom they confide, are teaching them every day by your con- 
duct, that religion is a delusion and the Gospel a lie. 

Or perhaps your excuse is that you have an ungodly husband, 
and that you stay at home to make home attractive to him. Did 
it ever occur to you that you might prepare an ark for the saving 
of that husband, if you would unite with the people of God in 
praying for his conversion, and if you showed him by your faith- 
ful attendance upon the ordinances of the sanctuary that you do 
not think it a vain thing to serve God ? How many a wife has 
fortified her husband in impiety by stifling her own convictions 
of duty, and neglecting the very means of grace which might 
have been instrumental in saving him ! 

But there is another neglect that seems to me more amazing 
still. It is the neglect of those who do attend all the means of 
grace to bring their children with them. The reason which is 
rendered for this failure in duty is that the children are studying 
their lessons at the hour of prayer. The lesson ought to be 
studied at some other time. Everything ought to be made to 
bend to the performance of this duty. But your accepting and 
giving this as a valid reason is a direct admission to your children 
that the attainment of secular knowledge is first in your esteem, 
and religion second and comparatively unimportant. The conse- 
quence is that they grow up with a depreciatory esteem of this 
important means of grace ; and when their school-days are past, 
they are never seen at a prayer-meeting. Who are the members 
of this church who never darken the doors of the lecture-room ? 
Those whose parents never brought them there, when they were 



PREPARING AN ARK. 



153 



cliildren. I^o wonder your cliildren are not converted. You 
systematically train them to stay away from the means of grace. 
If I had to choose between the loss of education for my children 
and the formation of irregular habits of attendance on the sanc- 
tuary and at the prayer-meeting, I should say, let them never be 
educated, let them lose all human knowledge : but let me prepare 
an ark for the saving of my house in the habits of a godly and 
pious family, trained in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. 
It seems to me that unconverted members of the church ought 
seriously to consider what effect they are producing on their 
children. " Probably, you do not wish them to grow up irrelig- 
ious like yourselves ; few parents have the hardihood to desire 
that the fear of God and the salutary restraints of rehgion should 
be removed from their children. Possibly, you exert yourselves 
in a degree to give them religious counsel and instruction. But 
alas ! how difficult it is for you to convince them by words of 
the value of what you practically reject yourselves. What are 
they daily deriving from you, but that which you yourselves 
reveal in your prayerless home and at your thankless table ? Is 
it a spirit of duty and Christian love, a faith that has its home 
and rest in other worlds, or is it the carnal spirit of gain, indiffer- 
ence to God, deadness to Christ, and love of the world, pride, 
ambition, and all that is earthly, nothing that is heavenly ? Do 
not imagine that you were done corrupting them when they were 
born. Their character is yet to be born, and in you is to have 
its parentage. Your spirit is to pass into them." And then you 
are to meet them in the future world, when the things not seen 
as yet shall have become realities, and you are to see how much 
of blessing or of sorrow they will impute to you. You are to 
share their unknown future, and to look upon yourselves as father 
and mother to their destiny. " Loving these children, as most 
assuredly you do, can you think that you are fulfilling the office 
that your love requires ? Go home to your Christless house, look 
upon them all, as they gather round you, and ask it of your love 
faithfully to say whether it is well between you. And if no 
other argument can draw you to God, let these dear, living argu- 
ments come into your soul and prevail there." 



154 



PREPARING AN ARK. 



Let me then exhort each one who hears me to-daj to go home 
resolved to begin from this hour to build an ark for the saving 
of his house. What a revolution it would produce in many of 
the households in this church ! How all your habits would have 
to be changed ! And be assured you cannot do it without what 
will seem to you an herculean effort. Remember that ISToah did 
not think it too much to labor for 120 years amid the scoffs and 
jeers of all his contemporaries, to build an ark for the saving of 
his house. You will have to encounter the same obloquy and 
ridicule. The world will call you a Puritan and a fanatic ; but 
oh ! if you save your house, what of that ? Your children, so 
long unused to restraint and discipline, will chafe at first under 
the new restrictions and burdens ; but w^hat of that, if you only 
save your house ? Oh ! what a change in the aspect of the 
church if parents would only believe what God has said about 
things not seen as yet, and should begin to build arks for the 
saving of their house. What blessed and delightful meetings for 
prayer ! What a precious revival of true religion would begin 
among God's people ! What conversions of the unconverted 
members of the church ! What a stir would be heard among 
the dry bones ! How would the impenitent be aroused to a sense 
of their danger, when on every side they should see the signs 
and hear the sounds of fathers and mothers engaged in building 
an ark for the saving of their house ! Then might they begin to 
believe that you have faith in things not seen as yet, and that 
you are in earnest when you tell them you are preparing to flee 
from the wrath to come. Oh, that God would baptize us all 
with the baptism of the Holy Ghost and with fire ! Come 
from the four winds, 0 breath, and breathe upon these slain that 
they may live." 



XIV. 



THE SABBATH. 

" The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." — Maek 
ii. 27. 

The Pharisees had accnsed our Lord's disciples of Sabbath- 
breaking, because to satisfy their hunger they on the Sabbath 
day had plucked ears of corn, rubbed them in their hands and 
eaten them. 

He defended their conduct, affirming that they had not broken 
even the strict law of Moses. 

To what did He refer when He spoke of the Sabbath ? Evi- 
dently to the fourth commandment, which is, Eemember the 
Sabbath day to keep it holy, etc." He does not intimate that 
He, as Lord of the Sabbath, abohshed the fourth commandment. 
But He declares the true end for which the law was enacted. 
It was made for the welfare of man as man — not for the Jew, 
but for man. 

There is no propriety in speaking of the Jewish Sabbath. It 
is a day that was observed for centuries before the age of Abra- 
ham. 

The fourth commandment relates to a day of rest which God 
appointed from the beginning of human history — a day sancti- 
fied by Him in the garden of Eden before the fall of man (Gen. 
ii. 3) ; a day honored by Cain and Abel when they brought forth 
their offerings to the Lord (Gen. iv. 3) ; a day recognized by 
Noah in the ark (Gen. vii. 10, 12) ; a day which was observed 
by Jacob in the marriage festivities accompanying his marriage 
to Leah (Gen. xxix. 28) ; and by Joseph in Egypt during the 
solemnities attending the burial of Jacob (Gen. 1. 10). 

The fourth commandment was not the original enactment of a 

(155) 



156 



THE SABBATH. 



law, but the republication of one that bad fallen into disuse 
during Israel's bondage in Egypt. In a condition of slavery 
among a heathen people, the Israelites had not been permitted to 
observe this day of rest. Hence, when Moses in Deuteronomy re- 
peats the law to the people, he enforces the duty of so observing it 
that the man-servant and maid-servant may also rest, by remind- 
ing the Israelite of his own enforced violation of the Sabbath when 
he was a slave (Deut. v. 15). Hence the language, "Remem- 
ber i. <?., " cease to forget," call to mind the forgotten precept, 
which, now that you are free, you can obey. 

That the Sabbath was an original institute, or ordained from 
the beginning, is made certain by the fact that traces of its rec- 
ognition are found among nearly all the nations of antiquity. 
The Egyptians, Phoenicians, Assyrians, Arabians, and Greeks 
divided time into periods of seven days, showing that they had 
derived from ancient traditions the idea of a seventh day as a 
boundary line between the other days of the week. Hesiod, the 
oldest Greek poet. Homer, Linus, Callimachus, Solon the great, 
Aulas Gellius, Lucian, and Lampridius, all make mention of the 
seventh as a sacred day. Josephus says, " There is neither any 
city of the Greeks, nor barbarians, nor any nation whatever to 
whom our custom of resting on the seventh day is not come." 

Bat the most conclusive proof of the existence of a primeval 
Sabbath is found in the recent "Assyrian Discoveries " of George 
Smith. He says, " In the year 1869, I discovered among other 
things a curious religious calendar of the Assyrians, in which 
every month is divided into four weeks, and the seventh days are 
marked out as days on which no work should be undertaken." 
Lines 14, 17, and 18 of the Fifth " Creation Tablet " exhumed 
by Smith, are thus translated by Fox Talbot : " On each month, 
without fail, God made days of sacred assemblies. He desig- 
nated the seventh to be a holy day, and commanded to abstain 
from all business." 

Hence, Canon Tristram, before the English Congress, says: 
" Amid the controversies on the origin and meaning of the Sab- 
bath, we now know that it was no Mosaic invention, nor exclu- 
sive Semitic observance, not even an ordinance delivered to 



THE SABBATH. 



157 



Abraham to separate his family from surrounding idolatry ; but 
a primeval tradition, recognized, be it noted, by the Hamitic con- 
temporaries of JS'imrod, as instituted from the creation : "We 
have thus another definite result, that evidence is afforded that 
, the Sabbath was recognized as a Divine institution before the 
separation of the Hamitic and Semitic families of man, and that 
the obligation of its observance was acknowledged by both fam- 
ilies." * 

I quote these testimonies, simply to show that the Sabbath 
was not introduced by Moses, and that the abolition of the Jew- 
ish economy cannot affect the general question. 

Moses was commanded by God to republish the moral law. 
The fourth commandment stands or falls with the other nine. 
It was one of the " ten words " graven by the finger of God on 
two tablets of stone. It was, so to speak, bound up in the same 
volume with the rest of the moral law. 

There was a broad line drawn between the moral and the cere- 
monial law. The latter, written by Moses, was put in a book and 
laid outside of the sacred " ark of the covenant." The former, 
graven by the finger of God, was put inside of the ark to show 
symbolically that it was inseparable from the covenant of obe- 
dience which Christ came to fulfil. If the law of the Sabbath 
were to be relaxed by the coming of Christ, it would not have 
been thus shut up in the ark with the rest of the moral law. 

It is sometimes said that the decision of the Sabbath question 
must be sought outside of the Bible. But who would accord 
any validity to a moral decision not enforced by a Thus saith 
the Lord f 

It is also said that, while the other commandments are re])eated 
in the New Testament, the fourth is not repeated. But what 
more positive reaffirmation of the " ten words " as a whole can 
any one demand than, " Think not that I am come to destroy the 
law and the prophets ; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." 
" Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no v/ise 
pass till all be fulfilled." 

* The Creation Tablets were found by Mr. Geo. Smith on the supposed 
site of the ancient Nineveh, on the bank of the Tigris. 



158 



THE SABBATH. 



^^ow, what is the fourth commandment? "Remember the 
Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and do 
all thy work ; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord 
thy Grod ; ia it thou shalt not do any work." 

There are two elements in it. One is precept, the other is 
prohibition. It is with the latter that I am at present deahng — 
the prohibition of all work. 

In the text our Lord says this day of rest was ordained for the 
welfare of all mankind. I am now only to prove that the high- 
est interests of all men demand a stated day of sacred rest out of 
the seven days of the week. 

First. As a mere animal^ it is not for the good of man that 
he work continuously without a seventh day of absolute rest. 

In the year 1832 the British House of Commons appointed a 
committee to investigate this subject. Dr. John R. Farre, an 
eminent physician, testified as follows : 

" As a day of rest I look upon the Sabbath as a day of com- 
pensation for the inadequate restorative power of the body under 
continued labor and excitement. The ordinary exertions of a 
man run down the circulation, and the first general law of nature 
is the alternating of day and night, that repose may succeed 
action. But although the night apparently equalizes the circula- 
tion, yet it does not sufficiently restore the balance for the attain- 
ment of long life. Hence one day in seven, by the bounty of 
Providence, is thrown in as a day of compensation to perfect by 
its repose the animal system." 

The law of the Sabbath is " written in man's members " and 
in the whole animal creation. The wayfarer who rests one day 
in seven, gets along faster and farther on his journey than he 
who presses on during seven days. The army which rests on 
Sunday marches farther in the long run than the army which 
does not. The team which rests does not become jaded by the 
whole trip. Droves of sheep, hogs, and cattle are found by 
actual experiment to travel farther and keep fatter by resting 
one day in seven. A flouring-mill in England was actually 
found to have ground 50,000 more bushels per annum after it 



THE SABBATH. 



159 



kept tlie Sabbath than before when it broke it. The men 
having been permitted to wash and dress themselves, rest from 
business, and go to church with their famihes, were more healthy, 
moral, punctual, and dihgent. They lost less time in drinking, 
dissipation, and quarrels. They were more clear-headed and 
whole-hearted, knew better how to do things, and were more 
disposed to do them in the right way." 

An experiment was once made in England upon two thousand 
laboring men in one establishment. For years they had worked 
seven days m the week, and were paid double wages for Sunday 
work. They were neither healthy nor moral. The policy was 
changed, and the consequence was they did more work in six 
days and in a better manner than they had done in seven. The 
superintendent said this was owing to two causes : viz., the de- 
moralization of the people under the first system, and their ex- 
haustion of bodily strength. These are all well-attested facts, 
which it is not wise for either employers or employes to disre- 
gard. 

Let us examine God's Sabbath law. Tliou shalt not do 
(my work. This clearly prohibits every one f:^m pursuing his 
ordinary vocation. If obeyed, it would close every store, arrest 
work in every flour-mill, foundry, tau-yard, wharf -boat, steam- 
boat, railroad, printing-office, ice factory, distillery, post-office, 
etc., in the land. Nor thy son^ nor thy daughter, imposes on 
parents the duty of restraining their children from the violation 
of the Sabbath. Wor thy man-servant, forbids employers im- 
posing any but works of necessity upon hired laborers. Nor thy 
rnaid-servoMt, prohibits unnecessary domestic employment. Nor 
thy cattle. Doth God care for oxen I Yes, even the beast of 
burden must rest. Nor thy stranger that is vnthin thy gates. 
Even the casual visitor that is in your house must conform to 
the rules of a well-regulated Christian household. 

Of course there are many practical difficulties to be encoun- 
tered in regard to the strict observance of the Sabbath by some 
of the classes in this enumeration ; but none of these difficulties 
are really insurmountable, and none of them impair the right of 
every laborer to demand from his employer a day of rest. 



160 



THE SABBATH. 



How many thousands of the sons of toil would be gladdened 
by the announcement that all the great corporations upon which 
they depend for employment and subsistence, had determined 
that henceforth no work should be done for them on Sunday. 
What an army of machinists and brakemen and engineers and 
conductors and other laborers, would be released from toil to go 
with their families to the house of God, if all railroads would 
keep God's commandments ! How many maid-servants would 
anticipate with delight the glad Sunday on which no elaborate 
dinners were to be prepared for their luxurious masters and mis- 
tresses, who go to church while they are sweltering in hot kitch- 
ens ! How many clerks in small corner groceries, shops, and 
cigar-stores would hail with joy one day of absolute rest ! And 
would the aggregate sales of those who engage in these minor 
industries be lessened one single cent ? Would not the wants 
they supply be the same whether met on Sunday or provided for 
on the Saturday previous ? Why is it that men who cannot, like 
the rich merchant, go out of the city to the sea-side or the moun- 
tains for rest, will voluntarily deprive themselves and their fami- 
lies of these fifty-two God-ordained weekly vacations, amounting 
in all to nearly two months of the year? 

Secondly. Man is not only an animal, but he is a spiritual 
being, with a soul that needs spiritual culture and preparation for 
the great future that lies beyond the grave. I am not now dis- 
cussing the question as to how every man should employ the day 
of rest. I am pleading for the workingmen and workingwomen 
of our city, that they be so released from work as to be permitted 
to spend the Sabbath in the way ordained by God for the culture 
of their spiritual nature. The Sabbath was ordained for man's 
welfare, not only as a dull plodder in the treadmill of industry, 
but as a probationer for immortality and as a candidate for a 
home beyond the stars. Give him a day of rest, in order that 
he may have a chance to make it a day of holy rest. Let not the 
tyranny of capital cheat him out of a vigorous, joyous, physical 
life, and at the same time frustrate his preparation for a glorious 
spiritual hfe, when he shall have laid down the tools of his 
drudgery forever. 



THE SABBATH. 



161 



I come now to a question which has given some thoughtful 
persons unnecessary trouble. The anti-Sabbatarian says, How- 
ever strong the plea you make for the seventh day, this does not 
prove that the first day of the week, or the Lord's Day, as you 
call it, should be kept sacred." 

I answer : First. There is no doubt that the Apostle Paul, in 
Colossians ii. 17, states that the seventh day is no longer our 
Sabbath. What day, then, is it ? Some day must be substi- 
tuted. The moral law is not abolished. What day more likely 
or appropriate than that which commemorates Christ's entering 
into His rest, as God did after the creation, on the seventh ? 

The day may be changed without vitiating the essence of the 
command to rest one day in seven. [N'o other day than Sunday 
has a shadow of claim. It must be this or none. It cannot be 
none, for then the moral law would be abolished ; therefore it 
must be this. The change in the day involves no change in the 
essence of the Sabbath. The fourth command does not make 
the seventh day holy, but it makes the rest-day holy — for this is 
the meaning of the word Sabbath. " Remember the rest-day to 
keep it holy." " Wherefore the Lord blessed the rest-day and 
hallowed it." 

Secondly. The fact is indisputable that inspired Apostles and 
their associates, immediately after the resurrection of Christ, avow 
that they are no longer bound to the seventh day, and at once 
observe the Lord's Day as a religious festival. Now couple this 
with the fact that they knew that they, with all the rest of the 
world, were commanded to keep a Sabbath, and the inference is 
irresistible that the authority by which they observed the Lord's 
Day was from God, though they do not say so. 

In the same direction is the testimony of the Christian fathers 
— Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Irengeus, Origen, Cyprian, Clement 
of Alexandria, and the author of the Epistle of Barnabas. Euse- 
bius says, " All things which it was a duty to do on the Sabbath, 
these we have transferred to the Lord's Day as more appropri- 
ately belonging to it, because it has the precedence, and is first in 
rank and more honorable than the Jewish Sabbath." 

And it is a striking coincidence tliat as Moses, the first law- 



162 THE SABBATH. 

giver of enfranchised Israel, was commanded to republish the 
obsolete law of the Sabbath, so Constantino, the first Christian 
emperor, legalized the Lord's Day by an edict applicable to 
pagans as well as Christians. 

It is sometimes flippantly said by those who have not gone to 
the roots of things, that the State has no concern with the Sab- 
bath, and hence has no right to enact laws in regard to Sunday. 
If by this is meant that the State has no right to enforce the ob- 
servance of Sunday as an ordinance of Christ's spiritual kingdom, 
granted. Such observance must be secured by the powerful per- 
suasions of the pulpit, and by the godly training of Christian 
families. But if it be meant that the State has nothing to do 
with the enforcement of the original institute of God, before 
man needed redemption, then this is merely a disguised denial of 
the doctrine that the State derives all its authority from God. 
Christians who advocate this view of the relation of the State to 
the Sabbath know not what they are doing. They are striking 
at the very foundation of all government, and are playing into 
the hands of those atheistical enemies of Christianity, who know 
that if they abolish the Sabbath they will abolish Christianity, 
but who do not seem to know that if they succeed in this, they 
will also destroy all the foundations of free institutions. 

Since the State itself is an ordinance of God for the good of 
man, it is charged with the duty of enforcing outward conformity 
to the law of God. And the same argument which denies the 
right of the State to legislate on a day of rest, would prove that 
it has no right to legislate on murder, theft, adultery, or any 
other violations of the moral law. The argument is self -destruc- 
tive, because it proves too much. If, as I have shown, the law of 
the Sabbath was primeval, given before man needed redemption, 
adapted to secure his welfare as an animal, and as a spiritual 
being, it is clear that it is binding on the entire race — on Hin- 
doos, Jews, Mohammedans, and Christians, and that it is the duty 
of the State to conserve the interests and welfare of all its citizens 
in this regard. If the State recognized its high functions as the 
minister of God, it would arrest every railway train, tie up every 
steamboat, stop every mail, shut up every barber-shop and grocery, 



THE SABBATH. 



163 



silence the clangor of every machine-shop and printing-press — 
not in the interest of religion, be it observed, bnt in the interest 
of rest for the men and women who are employed in the service 
of those who create the demand for their labor. It would close 
every saloon and beer-garden in the city — not in the interest of 
temperance, be it observed, but in the interest of rest, because 
dissipation is inconsistent with rest. It would close all theatres 
and other places of amusement ; it would arrest all base-ball clubs 
and brass bands and performances at public gardens — not because 
it is the function of the State to decide upon the morality of cer- 
tain questionable amusements, but because these exciting amuse- 
ments are inconsistent with that rest of soul and body for which 
a day of rest was ordained, and because the pleasure-seeker has 
no right for his own amusement to create a demand for the labor 
of those who pander to his tastes, and thus defraud them of a 
day of rest. 

The votaries of pleasure are fond of quoting my text, " Tlie 
Sabbath was made for man, etc.," as if it teaches that the Sab- 
bath was made for man to do as he pleases with it. Precisely similar 
would be the reasoning, "Woman is made for man, therefore 
communism is allowable ; and the law of marriage is a tyranny " ; 
or, " Property was made for man, therefore agrarianism is right." 
To say that God's Sabbath was made for man that it mio-ht be 
used for amusements, which, like some in this city, would have 
brought the blush to the cheek of a citizen of ancient Pompeii, 
is a contradiction in terms. 

The gradual encroachments made ever since the war, upon the 
poor man's day of rest, ought to startle the community as soon 
as attention is directed to them, and ought to arouse them as one 
man to the work of stemming the tide that threatens to drown 
the whole people in utter godlessness. One trade after another has 
been forced to succumb to the rapacity and greed of capital, and 
to the demands of the lovers of pleasure. Unless these demands 
and these encroachments are resisted, all the bone and muscle of 
society will be forced into the chain-gang, and doomed to unend- 
ing toil, with no opportunity for the spiritual culture of them- 
selves or of their children. 



164 



THE SABBATH. 



In the year 1834 a graceful writer for Blackwood invented 
a thrilling tale of a political prisoner immnred in a dungeon, 
whose portals never opened twice on a living captive. Its roof, 
floor, and sides were made of massive iron plates, the joints of 
which were skilfully concealed. High above his head there ran 
a range of seven grated windows which admitted light and air. 

On the morning after the first night of his captivity, he 
counted the windows ; and could he have been mistaken ? Now, 
there were only six ; on the next morning he counted only five ; 
on the next, but four ; on the next, but three ; on the next, but 
two ; on the next, only one. 

Ah! there was no mistake now. His dungeon was getting 
smaller every day. But surely his remorseless tormentor would 
relent and leave him this last window through which the light 
of heaven might pour. 

But as the almost noiseless walls began to contract, the hor- 
rible truth flashes upon him. "Yes," he exclaimed, looking 
round his dungeon, and shuddering as he spoke ; " Yes, it must 
be so, I see it now ; I feel the maddening truth like scorching 
flames upon my brain. Yes, yes, this is to be my fate ! Yon 
roof will descend ; these walls will hem me round ; I shall be 
shut up and at last crushed in an iron shroud." 

It is for this " last window in the prison of the sons of toil " 
that I am pleading to-day. They remember the years of child- 
hood, when every day was a day of light and gladness. They 
remember how "shades of the prison house began to close 
around the growing boy "; and as years advanced, how cares in- 
creased and burdens multiplied, and the world grew very dark, 
and life seemed hardly worth living. 

Oh ! let not their only day of sunshine on which God's holy 
light may pour in upon their souls be clouded too. Let not the 
last window of a holy Sabbath be closed, if you would not have 
them crushed beneath the ponderous roof and between the col- 
lapsing sides of a pitiless, Godless Iron shroud. 



XV. 



WHAT IS LIFE? 

" Man shall not live by bread alone." — Matt. iv. 4. 

The whole significance of the text to you depends upon what 
you understand by the word Life. For there are many who 
would readily admit the truth of the text who lead a life which 
denies it. 

What, then, do you understand by life ? What is it to live 9 

Observe that the text concedes that man does live by bread, 
but denies that " bread alone " is the means of life. And it is 
because men lose sight of this important qualification in the con- 
cession that they fall into the snare of the devil. 

It is right to labor for the support of the body. Bread is 
essential, and it can only be had by incessant labor. The primal 
curse imposed upon man the irksome necessity. " In the sweat 
of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread." " He that laboreth," says 
Solomon, " laboreth for himself, for his mouth requireth it of 
him." Of course, then, I freely admit that men must take 
thought for what they shall eat. But it is just at the point of 
this concession that the tempter persuades them that this is all 
that is essential to life. 

Let us trace a few of the practical results of the abnegation of 
the doctrine of the text. 

I. The first necessary consequence of this theoretical sensual- 
ism is the inordinate desire of accumulation, so rife in the church 
and the world. If life, in the sense held by the men of whom I 
speak, is of paramount importance, then the inference is imme- 
diate that men ought to be laying up treasures to maintain it 
against an evil day. That such a view of life leads to covetous- 
ness, is distinctly stated by our Lord in the caution He gave to 

(165) 



166 



WHAT IS LIFEf 



the man who begged Him to interfere in the division of an es- 
tate : " Take heed and beware of covetousness ; for a man's hfe 
consisteth not in the abundance of the things he possesseth." 
Now, that many men entertain the view of hfe which om- Sav- 
iour condemns, is evident from the fact that one of the most 
popular maxims of worldly prudence is this : ^' Make all you can, 
and keep all you make." 

It is true that a man may practice this maxim and remain an 
honest man ; but the transition is very easy from covetousness, 
to dubious views respecting the distinction between legitimate 
and illegitimate modes of acquiring wealth. By the ardent pur- 
suit of wealth as a good in itself, the moral sensibilities are im- 
paired and the conscience blunted; and hence you will find 
the man who began life with this maxim as his motto, at a later 
period expressing the conviction that a man is entitled to all he 
can make, and, in practice, giving a very hberal interpretation 
to the word " can," making it cover transactions of doubtful 
honesty, and justifying all the tricks of trade. It is true that 
what is called high commercial integrity is found to coexist with 
an inordinate desire for wealth ; but that is produced by the con- 
straints of selfishness, and not by virtuous principles. Many a 
man is honest in performance merely because " honesty is the 
best policy," who is a thorough knave at heart, his honesty be- 
ing nourished in the soil of intense self-love. No man can be 
inordinately covetous and be at heart an honest man. 

Another result of this theoretical sensualism is the utter 
destitution of all real benevolence. When this habit of heart is 
fixed, it intrenches itself behind two favorite maxims of worldly 
prudence — one, secretly whispered within the heart in order to 
fortify it against all the claims of charity, which reads thus : " A 
penny saved is a penny earned "; the other, which is flouted de- 
fiantly in the face of any one who begs a pittance for a distant 
philanthropy, embodied thus : " Charity begins at home." It is 
impossible for the man who loves money for its own sake, or on 
account of its power to provide him bread, to be a truly benevo- 
lent man. 

Another result of this false view of life is a scoffing skepticism 



WHAT IS LIFEf 



167 



in regard to the existence of those virtues in others, in whicli the 
man is conscious of his own deficiency. Men judge others hj 
themselves. They rarely accord to others virtues which they do 
not themselves possess. Especially is this true of those who have 
formed no conceptions of a higher life than their own, and have 
never experienced the inherent pleasure of elevated, virtuous 
affections. Whenever, therefore, they are called upon to forecast 
the probable conduct of others, or to interpret their actions, they 
always apply their own little standard of measure. As the result 
of their study of human nature, such men will enlighten you 
with profound proverbs like these : ^' Touch a man's pocket and 
you touch his heart," " Every man has his price." What a melan- 
choly aspect must human nature wear in the eyes of a man who 
believes that these proverbs are universally true ! How thoroughly 
pervaded by the essence of sensualism must that man be who can 
thus ignore the possibility of virtue's ever rising superior to the 
miserable creed of those who believe that man doth Hve by bread 
alone. 

Still another result of this wretched creed is an inveterate 
utilitarianism in all its forms. Oui bono f " What is the good 
of it ? " is the query it propounds to every scheme of public en- 
terprise, to every endeavor to refine the public taste or improve 
the general condition of the community. Not, what good to the 
public ? But, what good to me % Indeed, it often propounds the 
same question to every endeavor to enlist it in the work of its 
own culture and improvement. The man pervaded by this spirit 
ignores his own mind and soul. He has no desire for the intel- 
lectual culture either of himself or his family. The world of 
knowledge and the world of beauty in nature and in art are to 
him like the veiled Isis. He never knows, nor does he care to 
know, the secrets they conceal. He would not, if he could, 
drain one of their hundred breasts. He maintains with stolid 
obstinacy the dead level of his grovelling spirit, and walks the 
treadmill circle of the unlettered hind who " glorieth in the goad 
and whose talk is always of bullocks." Now, from such a posi- 
tion there is but one step to a loss of all principle and to the 
basest sordidness of character. The man who is industrious in 



168 



WHAT IS LIFEf 



order to make his living is doing the right thing ; but, if he goes 
beyond, and makes money itself the end of his labor ; if he is 
bent, not only on competence, but accumulation ; if he is making 
haste to be rich for the sake of being rich, he has already fallen 
into the snare of the devil. Let a man once lose the practical 
distinction between making money to live and living to make 
money ; let him once yield himself to the dominion of the 
" almighty dollar," and his moral character is ruined. He will 
soon come to regard wealth and goodness as synonymous, and his 
spirit will soon be the abject slave of Mammon. If, now, at this 
point, the lust of the flesh is brought into collision with principle 
by any great temptation, the man will almost surely discard the 
last vestige of his integrity, even at the risk of the loss of repu- 
tation ; and he will certainly do this if he has hope of conceal- 
ment. In this way I account for the sad defection from honesty 
so common among old men — men whose integrity had stood 
proof against a thousand previous temptations. We may lay it 
down as a truth established by the widest induction, that when 
the naked alternative of bread or principle is presented to him 
who holds that man can " live by bread alone," he will sacrifice 
principle for bread. There have been many conspicuous exam- 
ples illustrating the power of the opposite principle in enabling 
men to overcome the temptations based upon an appeal to their 
bodily necessities. I shall mention only one, which for moral 
sublimity has hardly a parallel in history — an example v/hich is 
especially pertinent, because the precise alternative presented was 
the sacrifice of principle on the one hand, and the sacrifice, not 
of luxuries, but of daily bread, on the other. 

You have all heard of the Free Church of Scotland ; but per- 
haps you do not all remember that this Church owes its present 
existence to the heroic assertion by her ministry, in the ears of 
all mankind, that " man doth not live by bread alone." 

A brief statement, abridged from Hanna's " Life of Chalmers," 
will put you in possession of the prominent facts. 

Previous to the year 1843, the Church of Scotland was con- 
nected with the State, and " established " by law. Her ministers 
derived their support from endowments. On this ground, the 



WHAT IS LIFEf 



169 



civil courts claimed jurisdiction over her spiritual affairs. Her 
ministers resisted what thej considered an invasion of thei?' juris- 
diction. After much negotiation the British Parliament decided 
in favor of the ruHng of the civil courts. The issue was now 
distinctly made up ; and the question was whether a church that 
for years had been peacefully united with the State should re- 
nounce her principles, or, refusing to do this, her ministers should 
become outcasts and beggars. Men of the world hooted at the 
idea that those poor ministers would think of abandoning their 
comfortable manses and adequate incomes for the sake of a mere 
spiritual abstraction. Even such a man as Dr. Gumming, of 
London, himself a Scotchman, assured the government that the 
Church would yield rather than starve. One of the most saga- 
cious statesmen in Edinburgh said, " Mark my words : not forty 
of them will go out." 

The next meeting of the General Assembly was the first oc- 
casion on which events would determine how far these proph- 
ecies were founded in wisdom. 

The day of trial came at last. Edinburgh was crowded with, 
visitors from every village and hamlet in Scotland who came to 
see the issue. The church of St. Andrew's, where the Assembly 
was to convene, was filled with spectators at 4 o'clock in the 
morning, who knew that they must wait nine hours in their 
seats before the session would begin. As the day advanced, busi- 
ness was almost entirely suspended throughout the great city. 
Crowds gathered in the streets, all faces wearing a grave and 
earnest cast. 'No wonder Presbyterian Scotland was thus deeply 
thoughtful and anxious. The honor of the National Church 
and her very existence as a spiritual organization were at stake. 
She was to decide that day whether she would sacrifice her con- 
science or her bread. Her ministry were about to be called on 
to say whether or not thenceforward she should be as sounding 
brass and tinkling cymbal, a hissing and a byword to all passers- 
by. As hour after hour elapsed, the strained feeling of the mul- 
titude who occupied every inch of sitting and standing ground 
in St. Andrew's was beginning to relax. At last, however, the 
rapid entrance of a large body of ministers into the space railed 



170 



WHAT IS LIFEf 



off for the members, told that the Assembly was about to con- 
vene. Dr. Welsh, the moderator, entered and took the chair. 
Soon afterward his Grace, the Lord High Commissioner, was an- 
nounced; and the whole assemblage received him standing. 
Solemn prayer was then offered. The members having resumed 
their seats, Dr. Welsh rose. By the eager pressure forward, the 
" Hush ! Hush ! " that burst from so many hps, the anxiety to 
hear threatened to defeat itself. The disturbance lasted but a 
moment. 

" Fathers and brethren," said Dr. Welsh, and now every syl- 
lable fell upon the ear amidst the breathless stillness that pre- 
vailed, "according to the usual form of procedure, this is the 
time for making up the roll. But, in consequence of certain 
proceedings of her Majesty's government affecting our rights 
and privileges, I must protest against our proceeding further. 
The reasons which have led me to this conclusion are fully set 
forth in the document I hold in my hand, which, with the per- 
mission of the house, I will proceed to read." 

He then read The Protest against the encroachments of the 
Civil Court, which, after reciting the wrongs inflicted on the 
Church, closes with the announcement that the signers of that 
paper, then and there, renounce their livings and deliver up 
the keys of all the churches and manses to the government, 
because of its interference with the conscience of the ministry 
and the supreme spiritual authority of Christ in His Church. 
Having read the protest. Dr. Welsh laid it upon the table, turned, 
bowed respectfully to the Lord High Commissioner, left the 
platform, and proceeded down the aisle to the door of the church. 
Dr. Chalmers, in his nervous way, seized his hat and followed ; 
all the great leaders — Campbell, Gordon, McDonald, McFarlan — 
of course, went out with them. This was the critical moment. 
It was easy enough for such men as Chalmers to give up their 
government patronage ; for they were great lights in literature 
as well as theology, and they were the idols of the nation. But 
would the obscure village pastors, who must the next day leave 
their manses and go forth houseless — would they dare to re- 
nounce the Establishment ? 



WHAT IS LIFEf 



171 



The whole body rose to their feet. Man after man, row after 
row, moved down the aisle, until the benches, lately so crowded, 
showed scarcely an occupant. A vast multitude thronged George 
Street outside, and crowded in upon the church doors. And when 
they saw the forms of their most venerated clergymen emerging 
from the church, they sent up a shout of stern but sacred joy 
that shook the very walls of the ancient city. No wonder that 
the stern old Presbyterians were filled with a frenzy of en- 
thusiasm. They were standing under the shadow of edifices, 
every tower and turret of which was radiant with historic glory. 
They were ti-eading on soil that had mingled with the ashes and 
drunk the blood of Presbyterian martyrs. 

The church from which the procession emerged was the very 
one in which John Knox " first opened his month in public 
to the glory of God." In sight was the cathedral where he 
preached in defiance of the Bishop of St. Andrew's attended by 
his file of loaded muskets. >Tear by was the chm^ch of St. Giles, 
whose rafters once rang with the voice of Knox thundering 
against the " idolatrous Jezebel," Mary. A little beyond, but in 
full view of many, stood the old Grayfriars, upon a level stone 
in whose graveyard a whole nation, 200 years before, had signed 
the iS^ational Covenant of resistance to Charles I., Archbishop 
Laud, and Episcopacy. They were standing on the \'ery spot 
where Patrick Hamilton, the protomartyr of the Scottish Eef- 
ormation, died at the stake, as only one of God's heroes can 
die. Tliey were treading over the tablet under which once lay 
the remains, and on which were cut the initials " J. K.," of the 
intrepid Presbyterian " who never feared the face of man." 

With all these glorious memories recalled by these architect- 
ural surroundings thronging their minds, no wonder that their 
bosoms glowed with a holy joy wlien they beheld a visible dem- 
onstration that the heroism of their Calvinistic ancestors had 
descended to their sons, and that God's truth is immortal. 

There was no design on the part of the seceding clergymen to 
form into a procession ; but they were forced into it by the nar- 
rowness of the lane opened for them through the heart of the 
crowd. As they marched three abreast, they were in full view 



172 



WHAT IS LIFEf 



of tens of thousands of men and women who had come from 
all parts of Scotland to see if thej would dare to do the deed. 
" Some smiled in mockery. Some gazed in stupid wonder. The 
vast majority looked on in silent admiration ; while here and 
there, as the daughter or wife of some outgoing minister caught 
sight of a father's or a husband's form, accomplishing an act 
which was to leave his family homeless, warm tear-drops formed 
which, as if half ashamed of them, the hand of faith was in 
haste to wipe away." 

Elsewhere in the city, Lord Jeffrey, a nobleman "who cared 
for none of these things," was sitting in his quiet chamber read- 
ing. Some one burst in upon him exclaiming, " Well, what do 
you think of it ? More than four hundred of them have actually 
gone out." He dashed his book to the floor and sprang to his 
feet, shouting, " I am proud of my country ; there is not another 
land on earth where such a deed could have been done." 

Such is a brief history of the Exodus of the Free Church of 
Scotland. She marched forth homeless into the wilderness, de- 
spising the fleshpots of the Establishment, her banner inscribed 
with the historic legend of the ancient Church of Israel, " Man 
shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceed- 
eth out of the mouth of God." In a wonderful dispensation 
of Providence, she has been fed with the heavenly manna, and 
with meat that her oppressors knew not of. And she stands this 
day the light and glory of that land — strong in her resources, 
strong in her faith, and only purified by the fiery ordeal through 
which she was called to pass. The Lord has given her grace, and 
the Lord has given her glory. He " has withheld no good thing 
from her, because she walked uprightly." 

My hearers, you may never be called to such a conspicuous 
display of the conflicts which must go on in your souls between 
principle and bread : but if you would triumph in your little 
struggles with temptation, you will be victorious only as you 
imitate her example in believing that the hfe of a man " consist- 
eth not in the abundance of the things he possesseth." Perhaps 
I have dwelt too long on this division of the subject, but I could 
not refrain from warning my younger hearers against the gross 



WHAT IS LIFEf 



173 



and sensual views of life which characterize the practical philos- 
ophy of our times, and I would raise my voice to rescue you from 
the fate of those miserable old men whom you see all around 
you, who have emasculated their souls and squandered their lives 
, in laying up for themselves — what ? — only riches, wretchedness, 
and spiritual ruin. 

II. But there is another mistake in regard to life which, 
although nobler in origin than that just discussed, is none the 
less a mistake fatal to the true life of the soul — the error of sup- 
posing that the Kfe of a man consists in the cultivation of his 
intellect. 

Says Dr. Chalmers : " The pleasures of the intellect, though 
calm, are intense, insomuch that a life of deep philosophy is a 
life of deep emotion. Even in the remotest abstraction of con- 
templative truth there is a glory and a transcendental pleasure 
that the world knoweth not." When, in addition to the pleasure 
the intellectual man derives from the acquisition of knowledge, 
he considers the practical power it gives him to benefit his race, 
the really beneficial influence he may exercise through its instru- 
mentality, it is not surprising that he should come at last to think 
that life consists in the accumulation of knowledge, and in the 
exercise of the intellect. Intimately connected with the satisfac- 
tion which flows from the culture of the understandiug, are the 
pleasures of taste. The universe not only teems with truth, but 

it is profusely garnished with all the elements of beauty 

Xow, the man who sees and feels this in Nature, must know that 
he is living a far more exalted life than the mere man of business 
who walks through the world unconscious that he is moving 
about in a palace fit for the abode of augels. It is not surprising 
that he should at last believe that that which so exalts his being 
above the grosser pleasures of the senses, is indeed the very wine 
of life drawn from the fountain of immortality. And there can 
be no doubt that the man of cultivated taste does live an infi- 
nitely higher life than the mere sensualist, and is effectually forti- 
fied against the indulgence of the baser appetites. Perhaps there 
is no class of intellectual men who realize more deeply than the 



174 



WHAT IS LIFEf 



lovers of the beautiful the truth that "man does not live by 
bread alone." 

l^ow add to this the universal homage paid even by the sensual 
and sordid to intellectual culture, the unconscious and instinctive 
tribute which rudeness renders to refinement, the undisputed 
supremacy which the educated mind maintains over the mere 
working mind of a community ; and it is still less surprising that 
many should think the solution of the problem, " What is it to 
live ? " is to be found in the culture of the intellect, and the re- 
finement of the taste. 

Although the number who really take this higher view of life 
may be small, still there are some here to-day. It may not be 
amiss to assure any and all such that the merely intellectual man 
has not solved the problem, " What is hfe ? " He has, indeed, 
reached the truth that man does not live by bread alone ; but he 
has grasped only a part of the truth, when he thinks that the 
activity of the mind makes up the complement of life. " Man 
liveth by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." 

It is true that the universe is a revelation of God, and every 
floweret is an expression of divine thought ; but he who has 
studied nature with the eye merely of a savant or an artist, for the 
sake of satisfying the cravings of his intellect or his taste only, 
has stopped short of the goal. Like the impotent astrologers at 
the court of Belshazzar, he beholds the handwriting of God, but 
he knows not the interpretation thereof. I may go even further, 
and admit that mere knowledge may lead a man from the con- 
templation of Nature to the recognition of God, and to a senti- 
mental worship of the Great Architect ; and still he may be 
totally ignorant of the higher life of the soul. For in this con- 
nection we must never forget that the highest intellectual devel- 
opment may coexist with an utter destitution of holiness. The 
history of the human intellect affords many examples of gigantic 
intellectual powers, large and varied attainment, coupled with 
moral depravity and spiritual blindness. And this brings me to 
the last division of this discourse. 

III. Life, in its highest acceptation, must comprehend, as an 



WHAT IS LIFEf 



175 



essential and as a predominant element, the spiritual life of the 
soul. Here I must saj, do not understand me as depreciating 
intellectual life, or as intimating that it does not enter largely 
into spiritual life. When invited to the contemplation of intel- 
lect in its sublimest offices ; when I see the highest displays of 
its glory ; when I consider its lofty aspirations, its exalted and 
exalting sentiments, its generous sympathies, its splendid im- 
aginations, its ethereal and blissful activity, its searching, lucid, 
and commanding reason, and its inborn thirst for truth, I glory 
in the consciousness of being a man, and that I may enjoy the 
immunities of intellectual life. But I cannot forget that the 
Word of God declares that a man may be intellectually alive and 
yet dead — dead in sin, devoid of all true spiritual life. I cannot 
forget that the Scriptures teach that the chief end of our present 
life is holiness now and happiness to come ; labor in the present 
for reward in the future ; moral discipline now for perfection 
hereafter. Intellectual activity here has therefore little value, 
except so far as it contributes to the nourishment of spiritual 
life in this world, and the attainment of eternal life in the world 
to come. 'No attentive reader of the Bible can fail to observe 
that the Scriptures everywhere speak of a divine life in the soul 
as something actual, and as entirely distinct from the ordinary 
activity of the mental faculties. Such expressions as these : 
" Your life is hid with Christ in God "; The life which I 
now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God 
" To be spiritually - minded is life " The life of Jesus 
made manifest in our mortal flesh all show that there is 
a state of the soul attainable in this mortal life, w^hich is called 
" Spiritual Life." At the same time it is very difficult to form a 
clear conception of what it is. But the following statement is 
true, though not exhaustive : 

1. The divine life as it may exist in the human soul is a su- 
pernatural condition produced and maintained by the direct per- 
sonal agency of the Spirit of God. It is a real, vital change in 
its modes of being — a change and state as real as any of the 
phenomena of external nature ; a change as real as would be a 
transition from physical or natural death to physical or natural life. 



176 



WHAT IS LIFEf 



2. This spiritual life may be most comprehensively described 
as consisting in the personal acquaintance of the soul with a per- 
sonal God, in personal union with Jesus Christ, and in personal 
communion with the Father and the Son through the Spirit of 
God actually dwelling in the soul as in a temple. 

3. The presence of this spiritual life in the soul is manifested 
principally in the acts of the affections and the will rather than 
by any achievements of the intellect, although it undoubtedly 
imparts energy and gives complexion to all the exercises of the 
understanding. But since its most direct influence is upon the 
moral constitution, we detect its workings mainly in those acts 
which are the exponents of character. 

4. Another characteristic of the divine life is that into whatever 
soul it enters, it enters to inaugurate a conflict between the prin- 
ciple of holiness and that of sin. That bosom is at once an arena 
where the spirit warreth against the flesh and the flesh against 
the spirit. And as the result of this struggle there accrues to 
the soul what the Scriptures call spiritual strength, or what we 
call strength of principle — a strength to do, a strength to suffer, 
a strength to resist evil. For this the Apostle made intercession 
in behalf of the Ephesians, when he prayed continually that they 
might be " strengthened with all might by the Spirit in the inner 
man." 

5. Another striking peculiarity of the spiritual life is that, for 
the most part, it is hidden : often unknown to the world around. 
The kingdom of God is often set up in many a heart " without 
observation." In this respect it differs from other life. It is 
hidden, because the animating principle, the vital operative ele- 
ment is not in itself, but in another. It is a life grafted into an- 
other life. " Your life is hid with Christ in God." 

It is hidden, in that in its results upon individual minds it is 
directly the reverse of the natural life. This seeks notoriety ; 
that, retirement from the market-place ; this seeks companion- 
ship with man ; that, with God. There may be, doubtless there 
are, within these walls some who, all unknown to the mass of 
the church, have been for years growing up into the perfect 
proportions of a lofty spiritual stature ; humble men and obscure 



WHAT IS LIFEf 



177 



women who, could we see them as they appear in the eye of 
God, would tower up above us all in the moral sublimity and 
grandeur of " the fullness of the measure of the stature of men 
in Christ Jesus "; and yet we know them not. They have been 
moving in their noiseless walk through hfe, accomplishing a 
ministry of doing and suffering, humbly and patiently doing the 
work and bearing the burdens which God has appointed them. 
Perhaps they are the sons and daughters of poverty ; perhaps 
unlearned ; perhaps regarded by the rich and prosperous as the 
offscouring of the earth. Perhaps they cannot even give utter- 
ance in fit language to their devotion to Christ ; and yet, if 
called to do, or suffer, or die for Him, they would write new 
days in the calendar of Christian heroism, and leave names to be 
added to the catalogue of those " of whom the world was not 
worthy." 

6. Still another characteristic of the spiritual life is that, when 
it is weakest in its own estimation, then it is strongest in its 
might. In this connection let me call your attention to the con- 
trast between intellectual and spiritual strength. Read the de- 
scription of Mr. Webster just before he was to make his cele- 
brated reply to Mr. Hayne, in the Senate of the United States. 
It is said of him, " He perceived and felt equal to the destinies of 
the moment. The very greatness of the hazard exhilarated him. 
His spirits rose with the occasion. He awaited the time of onset 
with a stern, impatient joy. He felt like the warhorse who paw- 
eth in the valley and rejoiceth in his strength ; who goeth on to 
meet the armed man, who sayeth among the trumpets, Ha ! ha ! 
and who smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains 
and the shouting." 

We feel that this is a fitting description of gigantic intellect 
reposing confidently upon its own resources. But in the domain 
of spiritual life, " man is never so weak as when he casts off his 
burden and stands upright and unincumbered in the strength of his 
own will ; never so strong, as when bowed down in his feeblo- 
ness, tottering under the whole load that God has laid upon him, 
he comes humbly to the throne of grace to cast his care upon 
God who careth for him." 



178 



WHAT IS LIFEf 



Such are some of the characteristics of the spiritual life, and it 
is manifest that it requires for its sustentation something differ- 
ent from either knowledge or bread. It must have " meat to eat 
that the world knows not of." It must derive its aliment direct 
from heaven. 

This was the life that Christ came to give to men. " He that 
hath the Son of Man hath this life." And this life can be per- 
petuated, as it is originated, only by a vital union with the Son 
of God. " For the bread of God is He which cometh down 
from heaven and giveth life unto the world ; and he that eateth 
this bread shall live forever." Happy is he who, sated with 
the bread that perisheth, but still unsatisfied, has turned away 
from the beggarly elements of this world, and cries out in con- 
scious emptiness, " Lord, evermore give me this bread." 

" This spiritual life is a real, blessed, glorious, mighty thing. 
It is a life begotten of Love, incarnate, redeeming, crucified Love. 
It is life given back from an awful perdition — the life of a soul 
reunited to God after a dark apostasy. It is life from God and 
in God, as the stream contains the waters of a fountain. By it 
we are made ' partakers of the divine nature.' It is life in all 
the opulence, freshness, and glory of the divine ideal ' when man 
was made a living soul.' " It is the very beginning and portal of 
Eternal Life. 

Now, this spiritual life is within the reach of every one who 
truly desires it. But, in order to obtain it, you must be born 
again ; you must be made new creatures in Christ Jesus. In 
order to eat of the hidden manna, you must receive the " white 
stone on which is written a name that no man knoweth, save he 
that receiveth it." You can never feed on the heavenly bread, or 
drink with relish from the living fountain, until you are endued 
with a life from on high. 

In this discourse I have brought into vivid contrast, sensual, 
intellectual, and spiritual life ; and, now that the picture is fin- 
ished, I beg you to compare the wretched pigmy who lives by 
bread alone, with that man who lives by every word which pro- 
ceed eth out of the mouth of God, and decide which of these por- 
traits shall be yours. If, when your mortal career is about to 



WHAT IS LIFEf 



179 



close, and you are entering upon tlie long career of your immor- 
tality, you would not be a miserable dwarf among tbe lofty intel- 
ligences of another sphere ; if you would not enter into eternity 
a poor starveling, a spirit emaciated for want of food ; if when 
stepping into the Great Future you would meet not strangers, 
but friends, in the noble and august society of heaven ; if you 
would receive the congratulations of wise and great beings — the 
holy welcome offered by warm and noble hearts, — then go and 
write it in your ledgers, write it in your counting-rooms, write it 
in your workshops, write it on the door-posts of your houses, 
write it on the fleshly tablets of your hearts, — " Man doth not 
live by bread alone." For as you sow in your daily life, you shall 
likewise reap. " He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh 
reap corruption ; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the 
Spirit reap Life, £ife EternalP 



XVI. 



FEAGMENTS. 

*' Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost." — John vi. 12. 

OuK Lord having been absent from Capernaum, which v^as on 
the northwest side of the Sea of GaHlee, returned thither, and 
as soon as His presence was known, crowds thronged around 
Him. But He had been engaged in arduous labors and needed 
rest. He therefore took the twelve disciples, and entering a boat, 
they rowed northeast six miles to the eastern side of the lake 
beyond the mouth of the Jordan, to the plain of Batiha, under 
the shadow of Bethsaida, where He might rest in the quiet glens 
that opened up from the lake. But the people seeing the direc- 
tion He took, ran around the head of the lake ; and, as they went, 
crowds joined them ; and by the time He had reached the shore, 
the whole plain was swarming with men, women, and children. 
The sick and helpless had come, or had been brought in the arms 
of friends. Passing through the crowd, healing by a word or 
by a touch all who asked Him, He ascended the hillside, and 
gathering the multitude into a compact mass. He spoke unto 
them the words of God. 

The day was far spent ; but the people would not go away. 
The disciples urged Him to send them away, that they might buy 
bread in the adjacent villages. He told them to feed the people 
themselves. He was not willing to dismiss them hungry, lest 
they should faint by the way. The disciples were amazed ; — 
How could they feed them ? Two hundred dollars' worth of 
bread, in our money, would not be enough to give every one a 
small piece ; and they had only five barley loaves and two small 
fishes. He said, " Make them sit down." 
(180) 



FRAGMENTS. 



181 



It was the montli I^isau, the season of flowers. The hillside 
was covered with a carpet of grass. The long shadows from the 
western hills were projected across the lake. The heat of the 
sun was abatiug. The disciples arranged the multitude in com- 
panies of fifty and a hundred. He took the five barley loaves 
and the two small fishes and began distributing food to His dis- 
ciples ; and they, to the multitude. " And they did all eat and 
were filled." But there was more than enough. Then said 
Jesus, " Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be 
lost." And they took up twelve baskets full — a great deal more 
than they had at first. 

You can form some conception of the magnitude of this mir- 
acle by remembering how the vast crowd that filled this hall last 
Sabbath impressed you with the idea of numbers. It is easy to 
talk of 5,000 men, but when you see them sitting in regular 
companies of fifty and one hundred, you get an idea of what a 
vast concourse of people means. Think how much bread and 
fish it would require to satisfy the hunger of this famished mul- 
titude. Christ fed them all by the exercise of His omnipotent 
power. But what was the meaning of this command ? "What a 
singular combination of lavish expenditure and frugal economy I 
Was it necessary that He, who had only an hour before exhib- 
ited His ability to provide for thousands, should husband the 
broken morsels remaining after the bountiful supply ? Or rather, 
was it not because He wished to teach a great moral lesson in 
connection with this miracle of beneficence and power ? 

What, then, is the lesson which we are to learn from this ex- 
ample of Divine economy ? The great principle which our Lord 
intended to inculcate, is contained in the following proposition, 
That which is valuable as a whole ^ is valuable in its minutest 
parts. 

We see the principle illustrated in I^ature, through which 
lavish profusion and boundless expenditure seem to run riot. 
The falling leaves of autumn, though scattered all over the earth, 
are not really lost. They have their resurrection in the budding 
glories of the spring-time, which by their decay they have nour- 
ished. We ourselves may be feeding on the bones of extinct 



182 



FRAGMENTS. 



races of men and beasts long since perished, whose ashes fruc- 
tify the soil from which spring our harvests of golden grain. 
The cautions jeweller, who works in the precious metals, under- 
stands the principle when he gathers the minutest filings of gold 
that fall from his vise, and treasures them against the day when 
he shall fashion them into a trinket, to adorn the bosom of 
beauty, or melts them down into ingots from which to shape the 
plain gold ring which is to be the emblem of wedded love. 

The law of the land forbids the " sweating of coin because 
although each piece of gold or silver loses a mere fragment of 
value by the process, yet the aggregate result of the petty pecu- 
lation proves that what is valuable as a whole is valuable in its 
minutest parts. 

Go to the national mint, and you will find the floor covered 
with a perforated carpet through which the minutest particles of 
gold-dust gradually filter, and they are gathered at the last, to be 
coined into the money of the realm. 

Now let lis consider the principle in its application to us. 
What are some of the things valuable as a whole, the minutest 
parts of which we are prone to undervalue ? 

First. Money. All value money in the mass. The more of 
it men have, the more they set store by it. But what is money ? 
It is in the last analysis, the representative of labor. However 
acquired by any one, whether as an inheritance from a father, 
or obtained by industry, every cent represents one drop of that 
sweat of the face by which man earns his br-^ad. Money is the 
representative of toil. It is not found, it is not stumbled upon 
by accident or luck ; it is wrought out of the travail of body, 
and brain, and soul. It represents the entire travail of the hu- 
man race. For whether it exists in the form of gold or silver 
coin, or bank-stock, or real estate, — all property which may be 
represented in dollars and cents is the representative of labor 
rewarded by God's providence. 

I^ow everybody values money. I need not exhort you to a 
love of it. Alas ! it is the crying sin of our age, and of every 
age ; a sin as old as the time of the Apostle, who said the love of 
money is the root of aU evil. It is not against the sin of covet- 



FRAGMENTS. 



183 



ousness that I now lift up my voice. I am trying to impress on 
you the truth that, much as you value money in the aggregate, 
there is not one of you who places the proper estimate upon its 
smaller parts. E'ow, as all you have comes from God, He holds 
you responsible for the manner in which you dispose of the 
smallest portion of His gifts. Too many feel that as they have 
made their money by their own exertions, they have a right to 
spend it as they please, or to throw it away. IN'ot so. Who gave 
the strength of arm, the health, the skill, the foresight, the dex- 
terity, by means of which you make money ? Who sent favor- 
able seasons upon the growing grain ? Who wafted the precious 
cargoes by prosperous gales ? Who warded off tempest and fire 
from the packed warehouses ? God. And as the result of this 
fostering care and Divine superintendence, you have become 
prosperous and comfortable in your worldly estate, l^ow what 
right have you, as God's steward, to throw away any portion of 
what He has committed to you ? You say you do lay up every 
year for your family ; you do give a portion to the benevolent 
enterprises of the day ; you do help support your church. Ah ! 
how much more might you do, if you would only save the pen- 
nies and the dimes that you throw away in useless and sometimes 
sinful indulgences. 

The rich man does this continually. He knows that he ought 
to make some return to God for all His benefits, and in looking 
at his abundance he sometimes recognizes God as the Giver, and 
says he is thankful. Few men are willing to bear the character 
so aptly described by the sacred poet : 

" That man may last but never lives, 
Who much receives, but nothing gives, — 
Whom none may love, whom none may thank, 
Creation's blot, creation's blank ! " 

Yet there are multitudes to whom these lines apply. They in- 
tend to do something for God and for the good of men ; but day 
after day passes away without the performance of their good in- 
tentions. The tide of selfish expenditure flows on without abate- 
ment, and the end of the year comes without their having exe- 



184 



FRAGMENTS. 



cuted one of their benevolent intentions. "No widow's heart 
sings for joy at the mention of their names, no eye grows bright- 
er when men think of them ; the blessing of none ready to perish 
greets their ears. Oh ! had they only reflected as they squan- 
dered dimes and pennies, that whatever is valuable as a whole is 
valuable in its parts, — and gathered up the fragments from their 
overflowing purses, they might all the year through have been 
reaping the blessing of him " who considereth the poor," whom 
" the Lord will deliver in time of trouble." 

It is very agreeable to the poor to hear the rich upbraided for 
their want of liberality, and they sit by complacently and enjoy 
the castigation. But I charge the same sin upon the poor. Of 
how many acts of sinful waste are they also guilty ! How often 
do they plead their poverty as an excuse for withholding gifts 
which they might bestow, had they only gathered up the frag- 
ments of their limited supply — fragments which have been cast 
into the ocean of waste and utter unfruitfulness ! Ah ! this charge 
of waste is one to which rich and poor alike must plead guilty. 

Second. Time is a gift of God, for the use of which we are 
all responsible. 

Life is the time in which to serve God and prepare for eter- 
nity. All value life supremely. " All that a man hath will he 
give for his life." And so short is it, that men are constantly 
complaining of its brevity. Yet, how much of it they waste 1 
Such is the constitution of things that it is broken up into frag- 
ments. Few have the opportunity of continuous labor. So im- 
perious are the demands of the body, that little remains for doing 
the great work of life — the preparation of the soul for its high 
destiny. Take out of life the time for working, eating, sleeping, 
and recreation, and what remains but the fragments of scattered 
days ? And these fragments cannot be gathered together. They 
can only be utilized as they occur. They are the merchant's half 
hour after dinner, the mechanic's evening after supper, the 
housekeeper's interval of waiting for the good man to come 
home, the mother's respite from nursing the baby after it has 
folded its little hands to sleep. How favorable these intervals 
for solemn self -inspection, for reading a short lesson in the Bible, 



FRAGMENTS. 



185 



for silent communion with the great Father, for brief colloquy 
with Jesus, for cherishing the presence of the Holy Spirit ! 
What opportunities for increasing knowledge, cultivating the 
mind, and garnering up treasures from pages "rich with the 
spoils of time" ! To some men and women of leisure, time is 
such a burden that they tax their ingenuity to devise methods 
for "kilKng it." Yet they value life as a whole supremely. 

This strange perversity in human natm-e is aptly illustrated in 
the following story : 

A felon, condemned to death, was respited on the following 
condition : He was confined in a well-lighted cell, supplied with 
well-seasoned food, and doomed to perish at last for want of 
water. A concealed tank, of dimensions unknown to him, was 
placed in the adjacent cell, and a faucet from it passed through 
the wall into his apartment. It contained all the water he would 
ever have to drink. When it should be exhausted he must die 
of thirst. Tou may imagine his feelings when he learned that 
the length of his respite was measured by this fixed but unknown 
supply. How timidly he drew the first cupful ! How cautiously 
he turned the spigot ! How sparing his first indulgences ! How 
long he endured the pangs of thirst before he would venture on 
a second draught ! But as day succeeded day, the stream ran 
strong and full. At length familiarity banished his early fears. 
He indulges in more generous draughts. He goes oftener to 
quench his thirst. He laughs at his former timidity. He riots 
in excess. He drinks as if some tempting fiend were urging him 
to defy his doom, when lo ! to his horror and amazement, the 
last drop trickles from the spout. Too late now to curse the 
madness and delirium of his reckless and ill-timed profusion. 
How priceless now the wasted draughts of yesterday ! He dies 
of thirst because there was nothing more to drink. 

Thus, thus it is with your life. You know not how short or 
how long it may be ; but you do know that your days are num- 
bered, and that every day brings you nearer the end. You can- 
not, Hke this poor convict, by self-denial husband your store. 
The onward sweep of your life is like the wave of the ocean roll- 
ing without one moment's pause until it break on the shore. 



186 



FRAGMENTS. 



But thougli much of the past is lost, all is not lost ; then 
gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing more be lost. 
O Lord ! " so teach us to number our days, that we may apply 
our hearts unto wisdom." 

Third. A third talent which God has given to every human 
being is Influence — the power of affecting the character and des- 
tiny of others. Some say, and perhaps beHeve, that they have 
no influence. But as every atom in our globe helps to preserve 
the balance of the solar system ; as the mote which sparkles in 
the sunbeam stretches out its attracting power to the distant star, 
so every one is a centre of influence that is streaming forth like 
the viewless magnetic current of the loadstone. The very worm 
at your feet, or the serpent that crosses your path, produces some 
change in your conduct or purpose. And can it be that you, with 
the power of speech and discourse of reason," are a mere cipher 
in the jostling crowd that hear your words and see your actions ? 
Let no one say that he is so insignificant as to be powerless to in- 
fluence the character and destiny of others. And what makes the 
responsibility so solemn is that our involuntary influence is often 
more potent than our conscious efforts to mould others to our 
will. One look of mild reproach drove Peter to penitence and 
tears. A tone of sympathy has often cheered a heart bowed 
down with grief. A word spoken in season has served to arrest 
the mad career of one hastening to ruin. A single smile has 
been to a darkened heart like a bar of sunshine in a closed room. 
A single wanton leer has lured to crime and shame. A single 
idle word or irreverent jest may be the seed of a harvest of sin 
and blasphemy. You cannot divest yourself of an immortality 
of influence. Like the fabled shirt of JS"essus, it cleaves to you 
with the tenacity of your being. You may take the wings of the 
morning and fly to the uttermost part of the sea, yet you will 
leave your footprints on the shore. You may sail out upon a 
shoreless ocean, yet you will leave a wake behind you that will 
surely be followed by many a pursuing bark. 

Observe, I am not speaking of your direct, but of your indirect 
and involuntary influence upon your fellows. How few regard 
the isolated impulses they impart to others ! How few are so 



FRAGMENTS. 



187 



circumspect as to trivial actions and unguarded words, as to make 
them distil like dews brushed from the wings of angels as they 
pass ! Oh ! gather up these fragments, that nothing be lost. 

There is one class of my hearers to whom I now make special 
appeal. I refer to you women who are here to-day. As a gen- 
eral fact to which there are rare exceptions, the influence of 
woman is Kmited to that circle in which she is confined ahke by 
the laws of I^ature and the Word of God. The office of wife 
and mother, to which God has ordained her, is more potential for 
good or evil than any other she may aspire to fill, through a per- 
verted ambition or mistaken sense of duty. In rare emergencies, 
when " men have ceased," God has raised up a Deborah to save 
His people, or a Joan of Arc to revive the sinking spirits of de- 
sponding patriots, and inspire heroes with new-born enthusiasm ; 
but to the vast majority God has dedicated the home and the fire- 
side as their appropriate sphere. And by leading a true and 
beautiful life, she can refine, elevate, and spiritualize all within 
her reach, so that she can do more to regenerate the world than 
all the reformers that ever agitated, or the statesmen that ever 
legislated. To her, God has given the work of training and 
moulding immortal spirits at the very dawn of their being. And 
this she does, not by formal precept or didactic lesson, but by her 
silent example and the outgoing contagion of her inner life. 
They see her looks, hear her vehement expression of passion, note 
the undisguised gush of feeling, thrill in sympathy with her 
bursts of emotion, glow with her joy, and tremble with her fear. 
She can cause flowers of truth, beauty, and spirituality to spring 
up in her footsteps, till the earth smiles with a celestial loveliness ; 
or she can transform it into an arid waste covered with the blight 
of all evil passion and swept by the bitter blast of everlasting 
death. Is this a trivial mission ? Has she no worthy work to 
do ? Is the sphere God has given her so narrow that she must 
step outside of it to intrude upon the hustings, the platform, or 
the pulpit ? Like the chaste Diana she may be hidden behind 
the veil of clouds, but even then her sway will be as imperial and 
resistless as the lunar reign in the world of waters. Some one 
has said, " Let me write the ballads of a nation, and anybody may 



188 



FRAGMENTS. 



write their laws." I say, let me train the young women of thi^ 
nation, and I shall sit upon a throne of power that will eclipse 
the empire of Sesostris, of Alexander, or of Caesar. I call upon 
you, mothers, and you, young women, who one day will sit as 
queens in the empire of your home, not only to use your more 
potent energies for the glory of God and the good of society, but 
to gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost." 

And may God give to all grace so to use their money, their 
time, and their influence, that at the last, when the awards of 
eternity shall be made, each of you may hear the applauding 
word, " Well done, good and faithful servant ; thou hast been 
faithful over a few things ; I will make thee ruler over many 
things ; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." 



.11 



XVII. 



TKE GLOEY OF GOD. 

Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the 
glory of God."— 1 Cob. x. 31. 

The doctrine whicli underlies this text is that the manifesta- 
tion of the Divine glory is the end of creation. 

Keep in mind the distinction between God's essential and His 
manifested excellence. In His essential glory there can be no 
increase or diminution. But it is not at all inconsistent with Hia 
immutability that His manifested glory should be every day 
growing more splendid and more refulgent. 

I. E'ow, the Bible doctrine is that the ultimate end which God 
had in the creation of the universe was the display of His mani- 
fested glory. The proofs of this proposition are innumerable and 
overwhelming. 

It is a necessary deduction from the conception of the God as 
Absolute. If absolute, He must be the sole end of all His acts ; 
if absolute, He is self-determined. Every motive which quickens 
His activity must originate in His self-sufficient pleasm^e. 

It is impossible to beheve that God could seek any other than 
the highest end in the creation of man. But the highest con- 
ceivable end is the glory of the infinite and absolute Being. We 
may conceive of many subordinate ends that He may have had 
in view, but we can conceive of no supreme end short of Him- 
self, without derogating from His perfect excellence. Since God 
is the greatest being in the universe, since in comparison with 
Him heaven, earth, angels, and men are as a drop to the bucket 
or as a bubble to the ocean, the manifestation of His excellence 

^ (189) 



190 



THE GLORY OF GOD. 



and the gratification of His infinite goodness must be for Him 
the highest motive for all His works. The glorj of the infinite 
God deserves from Him the highest regard. " It became Him " 
to prefer this to all other ends, as reallj as it becomes Him to 
prefer an archangel to a butterfly. He did not create this world 
simply or chiefly to gratify His benevolence by conferring hap- 
piness on the creatures of His hand ; but the chief end of all this 
expenditure of power and wisdom was that His power, wisdom, 
holiness, justice, goodness, and truth might, as it were, shine 
upon one mirror, and be reflected back to Himself and blaze out 
upon the eyes of an intelhgent, admiring universe. 

That the glory of God is the end of creation, is proved further 
by the fact that this is the end which the course of His provi- 
dence is actually accomplishing — the end toward which all things 
are irresistibly tending. 

Look back through the centuries, and you will see that every 
successive cycle has evolved some new display of the Divine 
glory. You read of nations rising and falling, of empires grow- 
ing and decaying, yet in their rise or fall, their growth or decay, 
disclosing His power and will as the moving force in their 
varying fortunes and shifting destinies. Behind the great 
panorama of history He Himself stands concealed ; and from 
one generation to another He veils His far-reaching designs; 
but by him who will with a reverent spirit study the march 
of events through the ages, the hand of God will be discerned, 
" working all things after the counsel of His own will, whereby 
for His own glory He hath foreordained whatsoever cometh 
to pass." 

The whole career of the Church from the calling of Abra- 
ham, through all itr. vicissitudes down to this moment, has 
been an unbroken exhibition of some one or other of the Divine 
attributes. All the great tragedies of Divine retribution — such 
as the Flood ; the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah ; the 
overthrow of Pharaoh and his host ; the extermination of the 
idolatrous nations of Canaan ; the demolition of Babylon and 
, Tyre ; the desolation of the Holy City ; and the decline and fall 
of empires, of which we read in secular history — are disclosures. 



THE GLORY OF GOD. 



191 



of tlie attributes of God's justice — a partial manifestation of His 
glory, it is true, nevertheless real flashes from the Godhead 
gleaming out over the tide of time. 

Or, descend from this high point of view and consider the his- 
y torj of the individual men and women whose names have sur- 
vived the wrecks of time, and you will see that the Divine glory 
has in some measure been enhanced, either directly or indirectly, 
by their lives or by their deaths. For in the moral world men 
may either become saints or fiends ; but whether saint or fiend, 
whether blessing or cursing, whether loving or hating God, they 
either give praise or occasion for praise. For " He maketh even 
the wrath of man to praise Him." 

The same thing may be said of the realm of human thought. 
Every step of progress in civilization and knowledge, every ad- 
vance in the arts, every utilization of the forces of nature is an 
occasion of " glory to God who hath given such power unto 
men." Every true science is, in fact, a psalm of praise. Geology 
in curious research rev^riting the history of our globe, and fill- 
ing up the details of that chasm which the inspired penman had 
left between that elder beginning, in which God created the 
heavens and the earth, and that morning and evening of the day 
on which man became a living soul ; Astronomy resolving the 
problems of the skies, and, as it were, summoning the " morning 
stars to sing again together " — all arts and all the sciences gather 
together to fling their many crowns at the foot of Him who is 
" God over all, blessed forever." 

Thus reasoning from the conception of God, from the course 
of His providence, and from what our own eyes see around us, 
we are forced to the conclusion that His own glory was the end 
He sought in the creation of the universe. 

But the decisive argument which really settles the question, is 
drawn from the Bible itself. We find in the book of Eevela- 
tion the same doctrine that we have been reading in the books of 
^Nature and Providence. The Scriptures reiterate the doctrine in 
various forms. 

It is said of the universe as a whole. Thus, " of Him, and 
through Him, and to Him are all things." For Thy pleasure 



192 



THE GLORY OF GOD. 



they are and were created." " All things were created by Him 
and for Him." "The Lord hath made all things for Him- 
self." 

The glory of God is declared to have been the final cause of 
the work of redemption. It is true that the Scriptures give 
prominence to the doctrine that the work of redemption origina- 
ted in the everlasting love of God for the world. Such passages 
as " God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, 
that whosoever belie veth in Him might not perish," etc., and 
many others of like import, teach that God had regard to the 
happiness of His people in devising and executing the work of 
redemption. But who does not see that the expression of His 
infinite love to men in the gift of His Son, the gratification of 
His yearnings to His fallen creatures in their rescue from perdi- 
tion, and, above all, the illustration of His mercy, which could 
not otherwise have been displayed to the universe, constitute im- 
portant elements of the glory which accrues to God in the salva- 
tion of men. Hence, on that illustrious night which preceded 
the day of the world's redemption, angels, when they proclaimed 
it, sang, " Glory to God in the highest." Christ, when about to 
achieve and consummate it, prayed, "Father, glorify Thy name." 
Eelievers are said by the Apostle to be " predestinated to the 
adoption of children to the praise of the glory of His grace." 
The graces, the joys, and the hopes of believers are declared to 
be produced in them, in order " to make known the riches of 
His glory." The f raits of righteousness are wrought in them 
" by Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God." All the myr- 
iads of redeemed saints are saved, as the Apostle says, " that He 
might make known the riches of His glory in the vessels of 
mercy which He had afore prepared unto glory." And the 
theme of triumphant song which shall ever gush from the choirs 
of the saints in heaven, will be, " Unto Him be glory." 

The glory of God is said to have been the end for which par- 
ticular providential events were decreed and accomplished. 

For example, the choice of the Israelites as a peculiar people 
was that they might be to Him " for a name, and a praise, and a 
glory " among the nations. For this end were aU His dealings 



THE GLOBY OF GOD. 



193 



witli His chosen people, that He might " be glorified in His ser- 
vant Israel." 

Paul declares that it was for this cause he was commissioned 
to preach the Gospel among the Gentiles ; " to the intent that 
now unto principalities and powers in heavenly places might be 
made known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God." 

There is an emphasis in the inquiry of Joshua that sinks deep 
into the heart of every godly man, O Lord, when Israel turneth 
their backs before their enemies, and the Canaanites cut off our 
name from the earth, what wilt Thou do unto Thy great name ? " 
And there is deep doctrinal significance in the prayer of Jere- 
miah, when, pleading for his backslidden countrymen, he says, 
" Do not abhor us ; for Thy name's sake, do not disgrace the 
throne of Thy glory." 

Kow a very specious objection is sometimes urged against this 
doctrine, that it exhibits God in the light of a purely selfish 
being, controlled by a motive unworthy of Him. But in the 
first place, if we can form a conception of no higher end in the 
universe, how can it be unworthy of God to seek this end? 
"Would it not be unworthy of God to seek any other as the chief 
end of His working ? 

In the second place, the objection is based on the assumption, 
that what it may be wrong for us to do or desire, would be 
wrong in God, which is practically dragging God down to a level 
with man, malring Him such a one as ourselves. A creature is 
nothing compared with God, and therefore for a creature to seek 
his own glory is to disregard God's glory. But to whom is God 
beholden ? "Whose glory but His own can He seek ? Since He 
is Himself the greatest and most glorious of all beings. He is the' 
only end worthy for Himself to seek. 

And in the third place, in reply to this objection, it may be 
said that it is only by the manifestation of the Divine glory that 
the highest happiness of the universe can be secured. The glory 
of God and the good of the universe cannot be separated. "When 
the glorious Being whose name is Love, acts for His own glory, 
He acts for the good of His creatures. Thus briefiy do I dispose 
of this objection. 



194 



THE GLORY OF GOD. 



II. I come now to the second great lesson of the text, viz. : 
That every man is bound by the will of God to select the pro- 
motion of His glory as the governing motive of his life. This is 
the motive which God demands shall control all rational creatures 
in all their actions — in the choice of a profession or vocation, in 
the pursuit of knowledge, in the acquisition of wealth — in short, 
in the whole conduct of life. 

Just here let me define what I mean by a governing motive. 
A governing motive is one which, while it does not exclude sub- 
ordinate moti/es, and which, while it may be temporarily sunk 
in consciousness, nevertheless does exclude all other motives 
inconsistent with itself, or motives w^hich would frustrate its 
operation. "When, therefore, I say that the glory of God should 
be the governing motive of our conduct, I mean that the desire 
for its promotion and enhancement should be the chief principle 
of action, that it should pervade and leaven all the rest, modify 
them, conform them to itself, tinge them with its own hue, resist 
and expel all that are inconsistent with itself ; just as the majes- 
tic Mississippi rolling on to the Gulf receives all its tributaries 
into its bosom, hurries their waters on with resistless sweep, 
tinges them with its own color, and, though temporarily diverted 
from its channel and sometimes whirled in vast eddies along the 
shore, and sometimes impeded by winds and reversing storms, 
still moves onward and down to the great meeting of the waters. 

Kow the question recurs. Why are you bound to select the glory 
of God as the governing motive of your life ? 

I answer : 

1. Because God is the greatest being in the universe. This by 
itself would be sufficient reason to our minds, if our affections 
were not polluted by sin. But it accords with our moral judg- 
ment of what is right. It is an instinct of our natures to ac- 
knowledge that a being superior to ourselves has a claim upon 
us simply on account of superiority. If we could realize the 
greatness and majesty of God, we should feel it to be as really a 
law of our reason to render Him glory, as we feel it to be a moral 
obligation to love what is lovely, or an gesthetical necessity to ad- 
mire the beautiful. 



THE GLORY OF GOD. 



195 



We know, too, that it is our duty, because angels and all holy 
beings joyfully recognize this as their first and most imperative 
duty. They spend day and night praising Him, saying, " Holy, 
holy, holy. Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to 
come. Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honor, 
and power ; for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy 
pleasure they are and were created." 

l^ow while all holy beings select the glory of God as their 
supreme end, shall man, the pigmy insect of a moment, turn his 
back on God, and thus say he would rather glorify himself? 
"When we contemplate such a picture our feeling of resentment 
is swallowed up in contempt for the littleness and meanness of 
the creature himself. Yet this was the essence of human apos- 
tasy, which was a falling out of God into man's little self. It 
was the " loving and serving the creature more than the Creator." 

I^ow while most men are supremely selfish, yet we meet occa- 
sionally a few choice spirits, inspired with nobler impulses — men 
who do live out of themselves — the noble men of nature, 
"wrought within a finer mould, and tempered with a parer 
flame"; but alas! though so generous in their sympathies, so 
elevated in character, one thing is wanting — they are not re- 
ligious ; and comparing them with Christians whose opportuni- 
ties for generous culture and elevated social intercourse have 
been very limited, you ask, " Can it be that these narrow Chris- 
tians are more fully discharging their duties to God than those 
whole-souled men you have just described ? " Yes, it is even so. 
For those elevated and noble men (who does not love them ?) 
might be all that they are, and do all that they do, even if there 
were no God. God is not in all, nor in any of their thoughts. 
They do nothing with a view to His glory ; yet they, as much as 
any, are bound to " glorify God in their bodies and spirits which 
are His." 

2. This general obligation to glorify God arising out of His 
supreme excellence and grandeur is enhanced by the relations 
you sustain to Him. (^^) You are His creatures. "He hath 
made us, and not we ourselves"; therefore, says the Psalmist, 
"let us fall down and worship before the Lord our Maker." 



196 



THE GLOEY OF GOD. 



(h) He is your preserver. He keeps your souls alive. "In Him 
we Kve, and move, and have our being." If for one instant He 
should turn away from you, you would sink and die, and to- 
morrow would be the tenants of the grave, (c) Then again, you 
are the recipients of constant blessings from His hands. He 
maintains in you the light of reason. He furnishes the air you 
breathe, the light by which you see, the food that nourishes, the 
water that refreshes, and the raiment that warms you. He spares 
the friends who cherish and comfort you, and the wife and chil- 
dren who make your home an earthly paradise. " It is of the 
Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because His compas- 
sions fail not." 'Now, how base it is to live on God's bounty, and 
yet despise the claims of the Divine glory upon you ! How 
mean it is to presume upon His forbearance, because the bread is 
given and the water sure ! How strange the complacency of 
those who can " smile and smile," and yet be guilty of such in- 
gratitude to the "Giver of every good and perfect gift!" 
{d) But all these blessings, great as they are, are obscured in the 
view of redemption, just as the stars pale before the glories of 
the rising sun. Redemption ! Redemption ! is far more than 
all else besides. For although God is the greatest and best of all 
beings in the universe, and on this account worthy of undivided 
homage, man disallowed His rightful claims upon his obedience, 
love, and worship. Although He made man, and preserves and 
blesses him every day, he has fallen into an abyss of sin so deep 
that he could never hope to regain his footing on the height 
from which he fell ; although God created him that he might 
"glorify God and enjoy Him forever"; although He stamped 
His own image upon him that he might always bear in himself 
a symbol of the Divine glory to remind him of the end for which 
he was created ; in spite of this, " he has sinned and come short 
of the glory of God"; and here on this earth, where God had a 
right to be most honored, has He been most ^Z^,shonored : and for 
four thousand years generation after generation have persisted in 
dishonoring His name and violating His law. And He has borne 
with it all, and forborne to glorify His justice in the quick de- 
struction of the entire race. 



THE GLORY OF GOD, 



197 



Kow why ? "Why this wonderful forbearance and long-suffer- 
ing of our God ? Here is the explanation. It was in order that 
here on the greatest scene of His dishonor, here on this earth, 
where man had sought to dim the splendor of His glory, He 
might be more conspicuously glorified in the salvation of man, 
" to the praise of the glory of His grace." And this office of 
glorifying Him He committed to His dear Son. Hence, as the 
work of man's redemption was about to be consummated, Christ 
claims that He has fully discharged His office ; " I have glorified 
Thee on earth, I have finished the work which Thou gavest me 
to do." 

And thus, "It was on the very spot where man was most dis- 
honoring God that man's representative was most glorifying 
Him. Where man was exhibiting the most appalling wicked- 
ness, there man's surety and substitute was giving the most signal 
display of God's mercy ; where man, breaking loose from all re- 
straint, was abandoning himself to open rebellion and to defiance 
of God's law, there his atonement was becoming ' obedient even 
unto death '; where the wildest passions that ever stirred the hu- 
man breast were raging uncontrolled, there, in our name and nature, 
was One giving the most moving display of a tenderness that 
could not be ruffled, and of a love that could not be quenched." 
" Where sin abounded, there did grace much more abound." 

Christ, our redeemer and representative, is lifted high upon a 
cross, that He might become a spectacle ; and in the view of all 
men, in the view of principalities and powers and the wondering 
angelic hosts, and in view of God the Father and God the Holy 
Ghost, glorify God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, wherein 
He had been most dishonored. Thus, created for His glory, we 
sinned against His glory, and were lying under condemnation for 
His glory, and now we are redeemed for His glory, that we 
might be " to the praise of the glory of His grace." Oh, what 
tongue can body forth in fit language the glory of this, the 
grandest display of the Divine character. We are now no 
longer our own, for we are bought, bought back, bought back 
with a price, in order that we may glorify God with our re- 
deemed bodies and redeemed spirits, " which are His." wonder 



198 



THE GLOBY OF GOD. 



that in a burst of sacred enthusiasm and holy power, the devout 
Heber should exclaim : 

"Salvation! Oh! salvation! 
The joyful sound proclaim, 
Till earth's remotest nation 
Has learned Messiah's name." 

1^0 wonder that, despairing to proclaim the glad tidings of salva- 
tion fast enough to reach the perishing myriads for whom it was 
provided, and impatient to make known " what is the riches of 
the glory of this mystery which hath been hid from ages and 
generations," he should apostrophize the unconscious elements 
themselves and cry out : 

*' Waft, waft, ye winds, the story, 
And you, ye waters, roll, 
Till, like a sea of glory. 
It spreads from pole to pole." 

And no wonder that the everlasting song of the redeemed before 
the eternal throne shall be, " Unto Him that loved us, and washed 
us from our sins in His own blood, and hath made us kings and 
priests unto God and His Father — to Him be glory and domin- 
ion forever and ever. Amen." 

IS'ow, although wicked men may think that they are not bound 
to glorify God for the work of redemption, it will always seem 
right to all holy beings that God should make the demand upon 
them ; and in the event of their final rejection of the great salva- 
tion, that He should glorify Himself in their damnation, to the 
praise of the glory of His righteousness and justice. 

But how strange is it that Christians should choose to do any- 
thing else than live for His glory ! 

"When I see those " who profess and call themselves Christians" 
apparently totally immersed in the world and in the accumula- 
tion of money, or when I see them expending immortal energies 
in puny efforts to enhance their own reputations and win the ap- 
plause of men, I cannot help asking : Are these the men who 
" thus judge that if One died for all, then all died, and that He 



THE GLORY OF GOD. 



199 



died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto 
themselves, but unto Him that died for them and rose again ? " 
Yet, men and brethren, 1 know, and you ought to be told, that 
you are seK-deceived, unless you make God your chief end. 
This is not a duty that simply flows out of redemption, this is re- 
demption itself. For redemption consists in our being bought 
back in order to the glorifying of God. 

III. And this leads me to the last reason why you should select 
the glory of God as your chief end, viz. : The consequences to your- 
selves. It is your highest duty to be holy. But to glorify God 
constitutes the highest phase of moral excellence. This is the 
last, as it is the first step in spiritual life. It is the point at which 
the babe in Christ feels the first impulses of the Divine Spirit, 
and it is the goal toward which the Seraphim and Cherubim are 
ever striving. But holiness and happiness are inseparable. Hap- 
piness consists in fulfilling the end of our being and in abiding 
by the law of our constitution. And in glorifying God we ac- 
complish the chief end of man, and therefore must enjoy God 
forever. We shall "behold His glory, even the glory which 
the Son had with the Father before the world was," and our 
souls shaU be " filled with all the fullness of God." 

If the great doctrine which I have thus unfolded could become 
a power in the lives of men, it would revolutionize the aspect of 
society. The merchant, the farmer, the mechanic, the artisan, the 
student, the artist, the poet, the philosopher, the man of science, 
then would show forth God's praise in the vocation of their lives. 

Then all thought, and all objects of thought, would become 
"hohness to the Lord." Men would not then regard God's 
house as the only appropriate place for worship, but all their 
work would be worship, and all the arts and sciences would be 
liturgies of praise. Then the telescope of the astronomer, the 
laboratory of the chemist, the pencil of the painter, the chisel of 
the sculptor, the pen of the poet, the hammer of the carpenter 
and of the blacksmith, would be dedicated to a diviner use ; then 
should we mingle our voices with the sound of instruments vocal 
under the touch of consecrated art, and 



200 



THE GLORY OF GOD. 



** Praise Him with the psaltery and harp, 
Praise Him with the timbrel and the dance, 
Praise Him with stringed instruments and organs, 
Praise Him with high-sounding cymbals." 

Then should " every thing that hath breath praise the Lord." 

Then, too, nature would seem to all to have acquired a new 
Bignificance : and the traveller, as he stands at the foot of Alpine 
glaciers, or wanders through green forests, or gazes on cataracts 
that fill the hills with hollow thunder, questioning for whom and 
by whom all these things were made : 

" God! let the torrents answer like the shout of nations, 
And let the ice plains echo, God ! 
God ! sing, ye meadow streams, with gladsome voice ; 
Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds : 
And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow, 
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God ! 
Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost, 
Ye wild goats sporting 'round the eagle's nest, 
Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain storm ; 
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds, 
Ye signs and wonders of the elements. 
Utter forth God ! and fill the hills with praise." 



XVIII. 



THE "WORLD AND THE SOUL. 

"What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own 
soul ? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul ? " — Mark viii. 36, 37. 

Values are variable. What a man prizes very highly at one 
time may seem to him utterly worthless at another. Robinson 
Crusoe on his desolate island hoards every grain of gunpowder 
saved from the wreck, while he despises bags of gold as useless 
dross. 

In making an estimate of the value of any commodity, there 
are certain general considerations which influence the judgment ; 
of these I mention three : 

1. The intrinsic value of the object. 

2. Its distance in time or place. 

3. Our personal interest in it. 

It is not necessary to prove by argument or illustration that 
the intrinsic worth of an object must have a controlling influence 
in our estimate of its value. 

That distance modifies estimates of value is plainly illustrated 
by the profligate spendthrift who mortgages his reversionary 
rights in order to get from the wily usurer the means of present 
enjoyment. 

Personal interest, too, in any object may give it extraordinary 
value in our eyes, while all the world besides regard it as worth- 
less. The lock of hair cut from the pale brow of a wife or a 
sister, while she lay in that cold trance which severed her forever 
from your embrace, has for you a value which money cannot 
measure. The difficulty of putting a correct estimate upon many 

(201) 



202 



THE WORLD AND THE SOUL. 



objects of desire is great, even when we have a standard of com- 
parison. So many elements come into the calculation, that even 
after careful deliberation, we are liable to wide mistakes. But 
when we come to an estimate of comparative values in a case 
where there is no standard of comparison, and where the objects 
differ wholly in kind, the danger of forming incorrect judgments 
is immensely enhanced. 

It is to precisely such a comparison of values that the text calls 
your attention. " What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the 
whole world and lose his own soul ? or what shall a man give in 
exchange for his soul ? " 

This question is addressed to each one who hears it. As if 
you were standing in the great mart of the universe, the solemn 
question is ringing in your ears, " What now will you take for 
your soul 1 " Calculate its value. Will you take a part of the 
world, or, if not, will you take the whole world ? Or if there 
are any who have bartered away their souls, what will you give 
in exchange to buy them back ? These are the questions I pro- 
pound for you to settle this night. 

But as there is no standard of comparison between things so 
different in kind, as there is no coin that passes current between 
the natural and the spiritual world, in order to make the estimate 
aright, we must go to first principles and inquire. What is the 
world ? and what is it worth ? What is the soul ? and what is it 
worth ? And then we must strike the balance between them. 

I. The World! What a compreliensive term! designating, 
as it does, everything that ministers to the intellectual or sensual 
appetites ! The world ! What a splendid array of dazzling ob- 
jects is suggested by this single word ! W 3alth^ fame^ jpleasure^ 
jpower I Wealth, with its long train of glittering attendants ; 
fame, whose temple with gilded dome and crystal walls blazes in 
the delusive glare that shines on all things this side of eternity ; 
power, with its magic rod of empire, before which thousands 
kneel in servile homage ; pleasure, the very mention of whose 
name awakes a thousand echoes from the halls of mirth, recalls 
the song of beauty, the laugh of youth, the rhythm of the dance ; 



THE WOULD AND THE SOUL. 



203 



and, to some of jou, the noise of the midnight revel or the sup- 
pressed whispers of darker scenes of guilt and shame. 

Such, under the comprehensive categories of wealth, fame, 
power, and pleasure, is the world. Whatever ministers to the 
gratification of our intellectual, emotional, or animal nature, be- 
longs to the sphere of this vast whole. 

ISTow, the question comes, " What is it worth ? " At once I 
answer, it is worth a great deal. It is worse than folly to try to 
make anybody beheve that it is worth nothing. Do not suppose 
that I am about to underrate the world. I am willing to concede 
to it all that the most inveterate worldling claims for it. A 
rational estimate of the world must lead to the conclusion that 
it has an intrinsic as well as a factitious value. Who can deny 
that wealth has a real intrinsic value ? It insures food, clothing, 
shelter, bodily comfort ; it buys social position, influence, friends ; 
it secures education, books, pictures, statuary, and all the works 
of art ; it enables its possessor to send ten thousand ministers of 
blessing on errands of mercy, and thus to secure for himself the 
blessing of him who considers the poor ; nay, it enables him to 
extend his influence beyond the natural into the spiritual world 
by sending forth the tidings of salvation, " till, like a sea of glory, 
it spreads from pole to pole." In these and a thousand other 
ways, wealth may minister to happiness and thus prove itself a 
real good. 

So, too, let no one underrate an honorable fame. A good 
name among men ! how eagerly sought ! how highly prized ! how 
justly lamented when lost ! It has a real value in the happiness 
it brings to its possessor, the prestige it gives him in the world, 
the honor with which it crowns his posterity, after he has gone 
beyond the praise or censure of mankind. An honorable fame, 
whether acquired on the gory battle-field, or in the debates of 
the council-chamber, or on the perilous heights of executive 
power, or in the peaceful walks of letters or science, or in art, or 
in commerce, or in finance, — is a real, substantial good. 

Pleasure, too, performs an important part in making up the 
sum total of human happiness. Solomon tells us that there is a 
time to laugh as well as a time to weep ; and the fact that God 



204 THE WORLD AND THE SOUL. 



has so constituted our natures that we are susceptible of enjoy- 
ment in social intercourse, in the chase, in the excitement of 
manly games, the free play of bodily vigor revelling in its uncon- 
sciousness of weariness or care, proves that there are innocent 
recreations and legitimate modes of relaxation from the stern 
work of hfe. 

In addition to all this, I do not deny that in an estimate of the 
value of the world, we must not forget that it offers all its attrac- 
tions to its votaries at the present time. It does not dismiss them 
to a distant future, but it presents itself in a tangible form to be 
enjoyed at once. Now there is no principle more fuUy endorsed 
by human experience than that embodied in the homely proverb, 
"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." I would not 
have you lose sight of this important admission. 

But there are two important considerations which may prevent 
your over-estimating the value of the world, and these I now 
present to you. 

First. However valuable the world may be in the abstract, the 
value to each individual is limited to a very brief period. You 
are all familiar with the principle recognized in our courts that a 
life estate is worth much less than a title in " fee simple," as it is 
called. A lease for a limited term may be bought for a much 
smaller sum than an absolute title. In all transfers of title, the 
conditions annexed to the tenure modify the estimate of value. 

Now what serves to depreciate the value of the world, is that 
you can hold it as a life estate, at the very best ; that after thirty 
or forty years, you must vacate the premises under a writ of 
ejectment. Its wealth, fame, and power must be resigned abso- 
lutely and forever at death ; its innocent pleasures must lose all 
their zest, long before you reach mature age, while its sinful 
pleasures will pall even sooner upon the appetite, and leave a 
sting behind to render manhood miserable, and old age intolerable, 
for 

*' Rooted stand, in manhood's hour, 
The weeds of vice without their flower." 

Second. A second drawback on the value of the world to each 
individual is his Limited capacity for enjoying it. 



THE WORLD AND THE SOUL, 



205 



The very idea of riches is the possession of more than we can 
possibly use or enjoy. A mere competency is not wealth. How- 
ever valuable, therefore, it may be in the abstract, the mere pos- 
session of what we do not and cannot use can confer no real hap- 
T piness. Thus it is with the world and all it offers. Thus you 
would find it if the treasures of Golconda were poured into your 
lap, if the plaudits of nations rang in your ears, if you sat upon 
the throne of an empire, or if the world were converted into a 
Mohammedan heaven, and you were lord and master of it all. 
Solomon tried all these things, and after having drained the full 
cup to the bottom, he pronounced it vanity and emptiness. 
Satiety was worse than thirst, because though full, he could not 
hold enough to make him happy. 

Here now we are prepared to close our estimate of the world. 
You see I have not tried to belittle it. I have conceded to it a 
real, substantial worth, and I simply remind you that our short 
life and limited capacity for enjoying it diminish its value to the 
individual man. Splendid, but transient; immeasurably large, 
but powerless to bestow immeasurable bliss — write this down on 
one side of the ledger, while we proceed to sum up the values on 
the other side. 

n. The Soul ! "What is it worth % In the former case we had 
a standard of comparison. Here we have none. There are no 
balances of human devising which will serve to weigh its value ; 
there is no formula which will eliminate the unknown quantity 
in the equation of its immortal worth. Still, I do not despair of 
convincing you that its value far exceeds imagination or compre- 
hension. Our knowledge of immensity may be accurate as far 
as it goes, although we can never have an adequate conception of 
the Infinite. There are depths of ocean which have never been 
sounded. Still, the oftener he casts his lead into its fathomless 
abysses, the more forcibly is the sailor impressed with the vast- 
ness of the watery domain. 

With a similar object in view, let me suggest some of the 
thoughts by which you may reach the conviction of the immeas- 
urable value of the soulv 



206 



THE WORLD AND THE SOUL. 



First. The manifest adaptation of the external world to the grati- 
fication of man's spiritual nature argues in favor of the value of 
the soul. The landscape and the flower might be divested of 
every element of beauty, and yet all the physical necessities of 
man be provided for. The ear is filled with music that might 
lead the soul of silence captive, and the eye is ravished with 
scenes of surpassing loveliness which awaken emotion and thrill 
the soul with ecstasy. If these were all destroyed and the world 
were converted into a dull, monotonous workshop, men's bodies 
might be as comfortable as before. Therefore, whatever in ex- 
ternal nature awakens pleasing emotion or confers intellectual 
pleasure, is a tribute to the value of the soul. 

Second. The instinctive homage which all men pay to the spirit- 
ual in man is a proof of its worth. This reveals itself in the tend- 
ency to incorporate with the products of the useful arts, the ele- 
ments of the " fine " or ornamental arts. The rude implements 
of the farm, the tools of the workshop, the utensils of domestic 
economy, are made to assume forms of grace and beauty, in order 
to delight the mind while the hand is at work. This is strikingly 
exemplified in the art of architecture. A tight barn is just as 
warm, and is as good a shelter as a brown-stone front. The lofty 
decorations of our public edifices do not contribute in any way to 
bodily comfort. But they do address the soul in eloquent silence, 
and awaken elevated thought and holy emotion. Thus, even 
amidst the sordid or sensual pursuits of men, the soul extorts an 
acknowledgment of her supremacy and asserts her worth. 

Third. Not only do men instinctively acknowledge its value, 
but they consciously allow its claim to supreme importance. 
Every instrumentality for the education and culture of the 
mind, every college and university, nay, every log school-house 
and every tattered spelling-book, is a witness for the soul testi- 
fying to the incalculable value attached by intelligent man 
to the spiritual part of his nature. And why have we assem- 
bled here at this hour? Why on this holy Sabbath has the 
din of labor been hushed all over our broad land, and why do 
thousands crowd to hear the Gospel ? Why, but because they 
all, and we all, believe, deny it as many do in their practical life, 



THE WORLD AND THE SOUL. 



207 



that the soul is the one great possession and its salvation the one 
great concern. 

Fourth. Again, the value of the soul is evinced in its power to 
master the body. The story of martyrdom furnishes innumera- 
ble proofs of the dominion of the soul over physical pain. Some 
have believed that miraculous fortitude v^as given to the victims 
of ancient persecution. What a godhke substance the soul must 
be which, amidst unutterable agonies of the body, could wreathe 
its lips with a smile of triumph, and force the shrivelled tongue 
to exclaim, " This fire is a bed of roses to me ! " 

Fifth. This leads me to mention its crowning glory. The soul 
is immortal. In this aspect, we have a standard of comparison 
by which to measure its value. The world and aU that is in it 
must one day pass away and be burned up like chaff. " The 
cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, 
the great globe itself, yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, 
and like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack 
behind," while the soul will be living on in immortal freshness 
and vigor. 

Sixth. But the great argument which stamps the soul with the 
mark of infinite worth is the incontestable fact that, in order to 
redeem it from a terrible perdition, the Son of God " emptied 
Himself " of the glory which He had with the Father before the 
world was, and came into the world to die for sinners. 
words can intensify the force of this argument. Here it is in all 
its simple grandeur — the one great miracle of redeeming love. 
The Devil and all the horrid crew of hell striving for six thousand 
years to get possession of human souls, and Heaven stooping to 
give them immortal life by union with Him, who only hath 
immortality ! 

ISTo wonder that the angels who worship around the throne 
hang over the battlements of the crystal walls, in breathless sus- 
pense awaiting the issue of this contest between the Son of God 
and the powers of darkness. ]^o wonder that " there is joy in 
the presence of the angels of God over one siimer that repenteth," 
when every soul thus saved is a trophy of the victory of the 
" Strong Son of God, immortal Love." The soul of man must 



208 THE WOULD AND THE SOUL. 



be of priceless value when it can enlist the energies of such con- 
testants for its possession. 

Now I have answered the question, " What is the worth of the 
soul ? " It is for you to say what you will take for your soul. 

Satan, who is the loudest bidder in the great mart of souls, is 
most skilful in adjusting the false lights with which he illuminates 
the gaudy trickeries of the world, which he offers as the price. 
The very nearness of the objects magnifies their false attractions, 
while it is only as with a telescope that I can show you those 
lights of eternity that illuminate the real value of the soul. 

If, therefore, with a weak or inoperative faith you discern eter- 
nal realities, you may even now be balancing the question whether 
the enemy of souls is not offering you a fair price. 

Before you consent to make the exchange let me put the question 
of the text, with another emphasis, " What shall it profit a man if he 
shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul ? " With this em- 
phasis it is not a question of intrinsic values, or of relative values in 
the abstract. It is now a question in which your personal interest 
in the exchange ought to determine your conduct. It is not 
whether you will barter a soul for the world, but whether you 
will exchange your own soul ; whether you will accept the splen- 
did but transient, the ample but unsatisfying attractions of earth, 
for heaven lost to you and hell as your portion ; whether for a 
few years of fitful enjoyment and feverish excitement you will 
forego the heights of glory to which you may aspire, and at last 
lie down in everlasting burnings. 

And now, if there are any here who have already made the 
terrible bargain, there is one more question in the text that merits 
their special attention — " What shall a man give in exchange for 
his soul ? " That is, Having sold it, how shall he buy it back ? 
The mere surrender of the world will not effect the repurchase 
of it now. The Devil is too shrewd a trader to take back a 
mere bauble for an immortal treasure. What cam^ a man give in 
exchange for his soul f 

Do you wish to recede from the bitter bargain? Do yon 
desire to find the priceless pearl with which you may redeem 
your captive spirit ? Come with me to the blood-stained cross 



THE WORLD AND THE SOUR 209 



whereon a ransom was paid for a spirit lost like yours. Come 
with me to Him who led captivity captive, triumphed over Satan, 
and despoiled him of his prey. 

Know, O lost sinner, that even in your last extremity, when 
you cannot redeem your own soul, there is One who has paid a 
ransom for you. Look unto Jesus and you may yet be saved. 
The voice of Mercy cries, " Deliver him from going down to the 
pit : for I have found a RansomP 



XIX. 



SPECIAL PEOYIDENCE. 

** And a certain man drew a bow at a venture, and smote the king of Israel 
between the joints of the harness."— 1 Kings xxii. 34. 

The narrative from which the text is taken is a very striking 
one. Ahab, the king of Israel, to whom reference is made, had 
been commanded by God through His prophet, to destroy utterly 
Benhadad, the king of Syria. After a bloody battle in which 
Ahab was successful through direct Divine interposition, and had 
captured Benhadad, he made a treaty of friendship with the 
Syrian king, instead of obeying the command which devoted 
him to "utter destruction. A prophet was sent to him with this 
awful message : " Thus saith the Lord, Because thou hast let go 
out of thy hand a man whom I appointed to utter destruction, 
therefore thy life shall go for his life, and thy people for his 
people." The peace which he concluded with Benhadad gave 
him an opportunity to repose at home, and to devote himself to 
the beautifying and extending of his pleasure-grounds, in the 
neighborhood of his summer palace at Jezreel. In the neighbor- 
hood of this summer palace was a beautiful vineyard of Naboth, 
held by him as an inalienable inheritance from his ancestors. 
This vineyard Ahab desired to possess, and he proposed to buy it 
from Naboth at its full value, l^aboth refused to alienate it 
from his family on any terms, and this made Ahab angry ; and, 
like a spoiled child, he pouted and went to bed, refusing to eat 
food or to see any one. Jezebel, his wife, who was made of 
sterner stuff, by an infamous criminal prosecution, sustained by 
the testimony of false witnesses suborned for the purpose, secures 
the condemnation and execution of I^aboth, and then Ahab 
springs up from his bed with delight, and makes haste to take 
(310) 



SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. 



211 



possession of the property stolen and stained with blood. The 
blood-guiltiness rests on him, and the prophet Elijah is command- 
ed by God to go to Ahab while he is walking in ]S"aboth's vine- 
yard and say to him : " Hast thou killed and also taken posses- 
sion ? In the place where dogs licked the blood of !N'aboth, shall 
dogs lick thy blood, even thine." 

Full three years elapse, and these events are almost forgotten. 
Peace and prosperity smile upon Ahab and his kingdom. But 
he is disturbed by the reflection that Ramoth-Gilead was still 
forcibly held by the Syrians, while it really belonged to the king- 
dom of Israel. He therefore invokes the aid of Jehoshaphat, 
king of Judah, to help him recover it. After some preliminary 
consultation of prophets, who are inspired by lying spirits to as- 
sure them of success in the enterprise, the king of Israel and the 
king of J udah lay siege to Ramoth-Gilead. Benhadad, the king 
of Syria, gave his captains a special order to single out Ahab as 
the sole object of their attack. He knew that the expedition had 
originated with Ahab, and hoped that his death would end the 
war. Although Ahab could have known nothing of this order, 
yet he had a secret anxiety as to the issue. Micaiah, a true 
prophet, had predicted disaster, and he well knew that the 
Syrians, his ancient enemy, would be more anxious to kill him 
than any one else. He therefore requests Jehoshaphat to go into 
the battle clothed in his own royal apparel, but told him that he 
would disguise himself. The meaning of what he said was simply 
this : have every reason to make myself unrecognizable in 
this war ; but thou, against whom the Syrians have no especial 
hate, mayst go forward in thy proper apparel." As the battle is 
in progress, Jehoshaphat is pursued and is about to be slain, when 
he cries out, and is recognized, and " the Lord helped him, and 
God moved them to depart from him." For when they saw that 
he was not the king of Israel, in obedience to their instructions 
they let him alone. So perfect was the disguise of Ahab, that 
the Syrians could not identify him, and it seemed as if he was 
about to escape their vengeance, and as if the word of the Lord 
by the prophet Micaiah was to come to nought. But God, who 
controls all events, small as well as great, nerved the arm of an 



212 



SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. 



unknown and obscure soldier to bend bis bow and sboot an aim- 
less arrow among the contending hosts. " A certain man drew a 
bow at a venture," and the arrow directed by the band of God 
found the only vulnerable point in the armor of King Abab. It 
was just at the point where the corselet lapped over the skirt of 
iron plates that protected the legs, that the arrow entered. Had 
be been in any other position, the arrow could not have found a 
crevice in which to enter. Had the armor been a little more 
carefully adjusted, or had the corselet been half an inch longer, 
the arrow would have glanced harmless through the chariot. 
Had the horse which drew the chariot been a little more fleet, 
the arrow would have fallen behind the chariot, or have pierced 
some other less protected victim. Had the " certain man " de- 
layed one instant to draw " his bow at a venture," the king would 
have escaped that shaft. Had the king been dressed in his own 
armor which fitted him, and not in that of another man which 
did not protect him perfectly, he might have escaped. Eut you 
see, all these things had been arranged by God, and three years 
before, while the warm blood of ITaboth was mingling with the 
waters of the pool of Samaria, God had inspired His prophet to 
warn the wicked king that his own blood, shed in his chariot, 
should be washed from it in the waters of that very pool. 

The object of this discourse is to use this narrative to illustrate 
the proposition that God controls all events whether great or 
small : that, in fact, there is nothing either great or small in His 
esteem. 

Men are prone to measure the importance of any event by a 
superficial estimate of its visible effects. Thus, an earthquake, or 
a great conflagration, or a tornado, is accounted an event of such 
magnitude, that it is deemed not unworthy of the Divine atten- 
tion. So, too, the great revolutions of which history takes ac- 
count, are considered proper objects for Divine interference and 
control. And so, too, many men are ready to admit that the 
more striking events in their own personal history are not be- 
neath the Divine notice. Their vicissitudes of fortune, the be- 
reavements they suffer, the accidents they experience or their 



SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. 



213 



escapes from great perils, tlie misfortunes that befall them or the 
auspicious circumstances that may attend their labors — all these 
things they are very willing to ascribe to the Divine superintend- 
ence ; but the ordinary events of every-day life they are prone to 
think are too insignificant in the eyes of the great Ruler to re- 
ceive from Him a moment's attention, and they continually refer 
the occurrence of these events to accidents or to chance. 

This is, of course, not a philosophical or rational view of the 
subject. Those who entertain it have no consistent theory on 
the subject of Divine Providence. Their views are not those 
which we find stated in books or assailed in formal treatises on 
the subject of Divine Providence. But they will be most satis- 
factorily disposed of by a clear statement of the Scripture doc- 
trine of Providence, which stands opposed to all incorrect views 
on the subject. 

The Catechism defines God's works of Providence to be " His 
most holy, vdse, and powerful preserving and governing all His 
creatures and all their actions ": i. e.^ He preserves all His crea- 
tures and governs all their actions. Two elements, therefore, are 
included in Providence — Preservation and Government. By 
jpreservation is meant that all things out of God owe the con- 
tinuance of their existence, with all their properties, to the will 
of God. By government is meant intelligent control, with a 
design or end in view. It is with this second element in Provi- 
dence that we are at present concerned. It involves the idea of 
" an end to be attained and the disposition and direction of means 
for its accomplishment." If God governs the universe He has 
some great end in view. This great final end includes an infinite 
number of subordinate ends, all of which must be accomplished 
in order to the attainment of the one great end of the whole. 

I^^ow the Scriptures teach that this providential government 
is — 

(1.) Universal y that is, that it embraces the whole physical 
universe, rational and irrational creatures, things great and things 
small, things ordinary and things extraordinary. 

(2.) That it is powerful ; i. e.^ that His omnipotence renders 
the accomplishment of His purposes absolutely certain. 



214 



SPECIAL PROVIDENCE, 



(3.) That it is wise ; tliat is, that the end He seeks is in ac- 
cordance with the highest wisdom ; and further, that the means 
He employs are the very best adapted to the object ; and that His 
control is suited to the nature of the creatures over which it is 
exercised. He governs the material universe according to fixed 
laws which He Himself has established ; irrational animals by the 
instincts which He Himself has given them ; and rational crea- 
tures in accordance with their nature. 

(4.) That God's providence is holy / that is, there is nothing 
in the ends proposed, the means adopted, or the agency employed 
inconsistent with His perfect moral excellence. 

This is the whole Scripture doctrine of Providence. But I 
wish to confine your attention to only one of these propositions : 
viz., that the providential government of God is universal / that 
is, extending to the whole physical and spiritual universe, crea- 
tures rational and irrational, things great and things small, things 
ordinary and things extraordinary. 

1. This doctrine flows from necessity out of the Scripture idea 
of God. As the Scriptures represent God as infinite in wisdom, 
power, and goodness, and as the Father of Spirits, if we could 
suppose it possible that there was one spot in the universe where 
He was not always exercising supervision and control, we should 
be denying His infiniteness ; and if we should suppose that there was 
one creature in the universe, whether rational or irrational, whether 
great or small, for whose good He is not concerned, we should be 
denying His infinite goodness. It flows necessarily out of the 
idea of God as the Creator of all things, great and small. The 
force of this argument is very great. If God did not think it 
beneath His dignity to create all things, great and small, alike, it 
certainly cannot be beneath His dignity to care for them all after 
they were created. Many seem to think that the universe is a 
machine which God took infinite pains to construct in all its 
myriad details, but that after He had built it and set it agoing, 
He lost all interest in it and left it alone to work out its results. 
This idea is utterly inconsistent with the Scripture conception of 
God. "When an artificer makes a machine, it will remain in 
existence though he should die the next moment ; because the 



SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. 



215 



material on whicli he works was ready created to his hands, and 
he only gave it form and figure. But God gives the very being 
as well as the form ; and the very being of the thing depends 
upon His preserving influence. " In Him," says the Apostle, 
" we live and move and have our being so that if God should 
cease to exist, the universe would burst like a bubble, and vanish 
out of existence. " And to suppose that anything is too great to 
be comprehended in His control, or anything so minute as to 
escape His notice, or that the infinitude of the particulars can 
distract His attention, is to forget that God is infinite. God is 
as much present everywhere and with everything as if He were 
only in one place and had but one object of attention. The very 
common idea that it is incompatible with the dignity and majesty 
of the Divine Being to concern Himself about trifles, assumes 
that God is a limited being / and that because we can attend to 
only one thing at a time, it must be so with God." * 

2. The doctrine flows from the evidence which the whole uni- 
verse gives of the operation of mind in every part of it. There 
is everywhere manifest the intelligent adaptation of means to an 
end, as well in the organization of the animalculae as in the order 
of the heavenly bodies. It would be as unreasonable to assume 
that the organized forms of the vegetable and animal world are 
due to the laws of nature as it would be to assume that a printing- 
press could be constructed which could compose a poem. 

3. The doctrine is demanded by the religious nature of man. 
Our sense of dependence, our instinctive and universal sense of 
responsibility, and the instincts of our religious nature, which 
demand intercourse with God — all teach this doctrine. Unless 
this doctrine is true, our whole nature is a delusion and an impo- 
sition upon us. We are created with instincts and aspirations 
which cannot be satisfied, unless this doctrine of a universal 
jpTOvidence is the very truth. 

4. This doctrine is involved in all the predictions, promises, 
and threatenings recorded in the Bible. God promises to give 
health, long life, and prosperous seasons ; or He threatens war, 



Hodge. 



216 



SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. 



famine, drought, and pestilence. Sucli promises and threaten- 
ings suppose a universal providence, a control over all the crea- 
tures of God and all their actions. 

5. The Scriptures are very full of this doctrine stated in a 
variety of forms. 

(1.) In regard to God's providential agency in all the opera- 
tions of nature. 

He guides Arcturus in his course ; He makes the sun rise, and 
the grass grow ; He gives rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons ; 
He clothes the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow 
is cast into the oven ; He makes the vdnds His messengers, and 
the lightnings are His ministering spirits ; earthquakes, tempests, 
pestilences, are sent and governed by Him ; events to us appar- 
ently fortuitous, as the flight of an arrow, the falling of a lot, the 
number of the hairs of our head, the death of a sparrow, are all 
controlled by the ever-present and omnipotent God. 

(2.) In all the animal world. 

Job says, "In His hand is the life of every living thing." 
The Psalmist, " The young lions roar after their prey and seek 
their meat from God." " They wait upon Him, and He giveth 
them their meat in due season." " He hears the young ravens 
when they cry." " Behold the fowls of the air ! Your heavenly 
Father feedeth them." " He giveth to all life and breath and all 
things." 

Now all these statements are not merely poetical representa- 
tions of the adaptations of nature to the necessities of the animal 
creation; but they teach that His creatures are constantly de- 
pendent on God's interposition and providential care. The mul- 
titude of the cattle was assigned as a reason for the preservation 
of Nineveh from destruction. God is represented as remember- 
ing NoahbS cattle as well as his sons (Gen. viii. 1). And when 
our Lord put into the mouth of His disciples the petition, " Give 
us this day our daily bread," He recognized the fact that all living 
creatures depend on the constant intervention of God for the 
supply of their daily wants. 

(3.) The Bible teaches that the providential government of 
God extends over nations and communities of men. " He doeth 



SPECIAL PROVIDENCE, 



217 



according to His will in the army of heaven and among the in- 
habitants of the earth. He removeth kings and setteth up kings." 
" The Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to 
whomsoever He will." " O Assyrian, the rod of my anger, and 
the staff in their hand is my indignation ; and I will send him 
against a hypocritical nation. Howbeit he meaneth not so, 
neither doth his heart think so "; i. e., Sennacherib, of whom 
He speaks, did not design to be the instrument of God's justice, 
but was only bent on the satisfaction of his own ambition and 
the extension of his empire. The shields of the earth," i. e. 
human magistrates, " belong unto God." Who would have thought 
that the forces raised by Cyrus against Babylon to satisfy his own 
ambition, should be a means to deliver the Israelites and to re- 
store the worship of God in the temple ? Yet so it was. God 
had this end in view, and Isaiah prophesied it three hundred 
years before Cyrus was born, calling him by his name : " That 
saith of Cyrus, thou art my shepherd, and shalt perform all my 
pleasure, even saying that J erusalem shall be built." 

" Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith, 
or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it ? as 
if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up, or as if 
the staff should lift up itself as though it were not wood." That 
is, God uses the nations as a man uses a staff or a rod. They are 
in His hands, and He employs them to accomplish His purposes. 
He breaks them in pieces as a potter's vessel, or He exalts them 
to greatness according to His good pleasure. 

(4.) The providence of God extends not only over nations, but 
also over individuals. The circumstances of every man's birth, 
life, and death are ordered by God, whether we are born in a 
heathen or Christian land, in the Church or out of it ; whether 
we are weak or strong, with many or with few talents, rich or 
poor ; whether we are prosperous or afflicted ; whether we are to 
live a longer or a shorter time, are not matters determined by 
chance or by the unintelligible sequence of events, but by the 
will of God. " The Lord killeth and the Lord maketh alive ; the 
Lord maketh poor and the Lord maketh rich." " A man's heart 
deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps." " Promotion 



218 



SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. 



-cometli neitlier from the east, nor from the west, nor from the 
south." " My times are in Thy hands," i. e., the necessities of 
my life. " God hath made of one blood all the nations of men 
for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the 
times before appointed" (^. e.^ the turning-points in history), 
" and the bounds of their habitation." 

From these comprehensive views of the universal and minute 
superintendence of Divine Providence, there are many inferences 
and many lessons to be drawn. 

(1.) If God is thus immanent in the world and in us, then the 
most insignificant of our concerns, and the most trivial events of 
our life, are under His supervision and control. And in this 
view there is nothing really trivial in all our personal history. For 
that which can engage the thought and be ordered by the supreme 
mind and the supreme power of the universe, cannot be a matter 
of no importance. In our blindness and in our ignorance of the 
sequences of things, we may account that a matter insignificant 
in itself, which nevertheless may be fraught with the most stu- 
pendous consequences. In many instances in which the veil has 
been raised by the hand of God, and He has permitted us to in- 
spect the otherwise hidden connection between a cause and its 
effects, we discern the fact that circumstances, regarded by those 
who observed them as utterly insignificant, have been links in a 
mighty chain by which were suspended vast revolutions in human 
history. A little pebble from the brook, guided by the hand of 
God, delivers Israel from the Philistines ; a dream of Joseph is 
the occasion of the ultimate settlement of Jacob's family in Egypt, 
and all the wonderful subsequent history of the Israelites ; Pha- 
raoh's daughter comes casually to wash herself in the river, but con- 
ducted by the secret influence of God upon her, in order that she 
might rescue the infant Moses, so as to train him up in the learn- 
ing of Egypt, that he might become the deliverer of his people ; 
the viper which leaped upon Paul's hand out of a bundle of 
sticks, was designed by God to further the propagation of the 
Gospel ; the cackling of geese was used by God as a means for 
saving the Poman capital from a surprise by the Gauls ; and as 



SPECIAL PROVIDENCE, 



219 



our text relates, a common soldier draws a bow at a venture, and 
destroys the life of a wicked king. 

You cannot tell what event in your life may be fraught with 
consequences of the most vast importance to you. 

(2.) If this is so, how important to seek Divine aid and direc- 
tion in everything you do, and for every moment of your hfe. 
How can you afford to do without the Divine blessing invoked 
upon every step of your progress ? How can you venture to 
begin the day without commending your way to Him who will 
order all the events of the day, all of which will be more or less 
influential in determining your future course, and in fixing your 
ultimate destiny ? 

(3.) This \dew of the universal and minute providential control 
of God will enable us to understand what are called special 
providences." There are no such things as special providenceSy 
if by this is meant that God interferes in human affairs more 
actively at one time or on one occasion than another, for the 
deliverance of His people from impending evil. What are called 
" special providences " are only instances in which we are per- 
mitted to see more plainly than at other times the immediate 
instrumentalities by which our deliverance from danger or rescue 
from threatened disaster is effected. An instance in point is 
recorded in the book of Esther. On the very night before the 
day that the destruction of Mordecai and the whole Jewish peo- 
ple was to be accomplished, the king could not sleep and com- 
manded the records of the empire to be read, and God had so 
ordered it that that particular roll should be read to him which 
recorded the story of Mordecai's services in exposing and defeat- 
ing a conspiracy against the king. This led to inquiry, and to 
the subsequent reward of Mordecai, and the deliverance of the 
Jews from extermination. Xow this would be called a " special 
providence"; but there was nothing more special in it than a 
thousand other providences in regard to the Jews, the occasions 
of which were unknown and therefore unrecorded. I saw not 
long ago an account of a citizen of this county who was about to 
embark on a steamboat on the Mississippi ; but just as he was 
going aboard of her, he discovered that his purse had been stolen, 



220 



SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. 



and he was compelled to return to his hotel and wait until he 
conld telegraph for more money to his friends at home. The 
steamboat was lost with all on board. He, of course, escaped on 
account of the loss of his money, which, if the accident had not 
happened to the boat, he would have regarded a great misfortune. 
This loss of his purse he regarded a " special providence but it 
was no more a special providence to him than the providence 
which kept me at home so that I was not near taking passage in 
the boat, and which kept me out of the reach of pickpockets, so 
that I lost neither money nor life. 

A ITew York merchant, not long ago, whose home was in the 
country, was very anxious to be in the city at a certain hour in 
order to attend to important business ; but it was necessary for 
him to have a certain paper to take with him. Just as he was 
about to start, the paper which had been lying on the mantel 
could be found nowhere. It had not been touched by any mem- 
ber of the family, and all of them had been in the apartment, 
except for a single moment when all had gone out together, leav- 
ing only a two-year-old infant in the room. The search for the 
paper detained him for a minute ; and, though he made haste, 
he was too late for the early train, and returned from the station 
to have his disappointment changed into bad humor by the dis- 
covery that his little boy had climbed up to the mantel-piece, 
taken the paper, and torn it to pieces. In a little while the tele- 
graph reported the total wrecking of that particular train, and 
the killing and mangling of nearly all the passengers. He 
regarded that as a " special providence" to him, forgetting that 
the same providence had carried him every day for years over 
that same road without any accident to him or to any one else. 
In this particular instance God enabled him to see the connection 
between the trivial event of the loss of a paper and the preserva" 
tion of his life ; but on a thousand occasions before, his life had 
been preserved by circumstances equally trivial, only he was not 
permitted to see their causal efficiency. 

(4.) But there is another sense in which the doctrine of a spe- 
cial Providence is true and as precious as it is true. This is the 
doctrine as stated by Paul, ''All things work together for good 



SPECIAL PROVIDENCE, 



221 



to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His 
purpose." All things are special providences for the good of 
God's people. In some way that I cannot comprehend, mj Kfe 
is bound up in all the comphcated web of His providence. I 
^ cannot unravel the intricate windings of that all-comprehending 
plan ; but I know from His "Word that I am personally interested 
in every process and in every atom of the vast universe, which 
He manages and controls. " The whole material system is a 
ministry for good to me. The beauty, the poetry, the majesty, 
and the wonder of creation reflect the nature and echo the voice 
of God. A Father's tenderness shines down from every star and 
smiles upon me from every common flower. His wisdom breathes 
in the golden calm of the summer's day and His power careers 
in the storm. Interest in us beams in the countenance of Orion 
on his distant and dazzling throne ; and the landscape beneath 
us, with sloping vales, wooded crests, and gleaming floods, is the 
face of a friend. This fallen world is made a scene of benignity 
and benediction, and all is constrained to work for good to us. 
All the ages are linked together, and men of all time join hands 
to bless us. For good to those who love God, Egypt reared its 
pyramids and Nineveh its palaces, Phoenicia traded, Greece spec- 
ulated, and Eome conquered. For good to them, the Hebrew 
conceived sublimity, and the subtle Greek wrought to finest tem- 
per his perfect tongue. For good to them, Adam fell, Abraham 
behoved, David sung, Isaiah soared, Jerusalem apostatized, Judas 
played traitor, the Lord wept on Olivet, agonized in Gethsemane, 
and died on Calvary." 

(5.) If the eyes of God's omniscience are always open to behold 
us, we may well believe that the arms of His goodness are open 
to embrace us. As the multitude of His concerns does not hinder 
His intimate knowledge of them, so neither does it hinder His 
care over them. The Apostle Peter advises us to cast all our 
care upon Him, for He careth for us. If God has a tender care 
for sparrows, and has this moment a conscious knowledge of the 
number of the hairs in your heads, why should you fear to com- 
mit to Him your important concerns ? Nay more, why should 
you fear to consult Him and to ask His interposition in what you 



222 



SPECIAL PROVIDENCE, 



may consider matters too insignificant to merit His notice ? "When 
He says cast all your care, He means all jomt cares on Him, for 
He careth for all your interests and is not offended when you 
present the most trivial desire in your petitions to Him. 

(6.) Lastly. It is perfectly rational to pray to God for anything 
for which He has encouraged us to pray in His Word. Solomon 
prayed for wisdom, Hezekiah for restoration to health, Jabez for 
temporal prosperity, Asa for victory over his enemies in battle, 
Elijah for rain, David for pardon and sanctification, and God 
heard all these prayers. God is immanent in the world, inti- 
mately and always present with every particle of matter ; and this 
is a presence not of being only, but of knowledge and power. 
What sort of God would that be who made a universe of matter, 
and impressed such laws upon it as to put it beyond the reach of 
His immediate control ? " It is by a natural law or physical force 
that vapor arises from the surface of the ocean and is formed 
into clouds and condenses and falls in showers upon the earth, 
yet God so controls the operation of the laws producing these 
effects, that He sends rain when and where He pleases. The 
same is true of all the operations of nature and all events in the 
external world. They are due to the efficiency of physical forces ; 
but those which are combined, adjusted, and made to co-operate 
with or to counteract each other, in the greatest complexity, are 
all under the constant guidance of God, and are made to accom- 
plish His purpose. It is perfectly rational, therefore, in a world 
where blind natural forces are the proximate causes of everything 
that occurs, to pray for health, for protection, for fruitful seasons, 
for success in business and in study, for rain, for peace and pros- 
perity, since all these events are determined by the intelligent 
agency of God." 

My brethren, let not a half -fledged science or the baptized infidel- 
ity of half-educated teachers, or the speculations of an infidel philos- 
ophy, cheat you out of the consolations and support which the Bible 
gives you, when it tells you that you would be as helpless orphans 
but for the constant oversight and protection of a heavenly Father, 
who, having been great enough to create, is powerful to control 
every pulsation of the vast Cosmos of which you are a part. 



XX. 



INFLUEi^CE. 

** And that man perished not alone in his iniquity." — Joshua xxii. 20. 

The narratives of the Bible are eminently instructive. All 
history is providence teaching by example ; for as Solomon tells 
us, " The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be, and that 
which is done is that which shall be done, and there is no new 
thing under the sun." Every human Hfe is simply the reproduc- 
tion of the old in the new. Dr. Johnson has said that " the 
biography of the most unimportant individual on the globe, were 
it fully written out so that the life should appear just and fully 
as it was, would overflow with interest and entertainment for all 
men." Bible history has the advantage over all profane history. 
The latter presents facts and the deductions which the writer 
draws from them. The former presents us with facts too, but 
furnishes us with their providential meaning as revealed by the 
pen of inspiration. 

Hence Scripture narrative always teaches important doctrines. 
Men who look upon the narratives of the Old Testament as com- 
paratively unimportant, inasmuch as they are so largely made up 
of brief biographical notices of comparatively obscure individ- 
uals, lose sight of this fact. But the Apostle tells us that " what- 
soever things were written aforetime, were written for our learn- 
ing " that these things happened for ensaraples and are written 
for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come" 
(Rom. XV. 4, and 1 Cor. x. 11). Scripture history is a record not 
only of the actions of men of the olden time, but of God's deal- 
ings with them ; and while it represents them as actors, it lifts 
the curtain from the Divine purpose, and shows us the reasons 

(223) 



224 



INFLUENCE, 



for the providential dispensations it records. The history of the 
sin and punishment of Achan is eminently instructive in itself, 
and very suggestive of important truth. In order to present the 
subject more distinctly, suffer me to recapitulate the main inci- 
dents. 

Joshua, by Divine command, besieges the city of Jericho. 
The whole city was devoted to complete destruction — it was to 
be razed to the ground and utterly obliterated from the earth. 
Every living thing, man and woman, young and old, oxen, sheep, 
asses, were all to be destroyed with the edge of the sword, and 
everything in it was to be burned with fire. Two exceptions to 
this decree of general devastation were made in favor — 

First, of the family of Rahab, the harlot, because she hid the 
spies that were sent into the city. 

Second, of the silver and gold, which were to be saved and 
consecrated to the treasury of the house of the Lord. The people 
were strictly forbidden to appropriate the treasure which should be 
found in the city, but were commanded to bring it all to J oshua to 
be set apart to a sacred use. In direct disobedience to the Divine 
command, Achan, a man belonging to the tribe of J udah, appro- 
priates and secretes a magnificent robe, two hundred shekels of 
silver, and a heavy bar of gold — burying them in the midst of 
his tent. His sin was two-fold. (1.") He was guilty of direct 
disobedience to the commands of God. (2.) He was guilty of 
sacrilege. 

The consequences of his sin at once manifested themselves, 
not in any direct judgment upon him, but in the evidences of 
God's displeasure against the whole people. For after the con- 
quest of Jericho, Joshua sent men to Ai, an insignificant town in 
the vicinity. Its means of resistance were so feeble that he did 
not judge it necessary to detail more than two or three thousand 
men for its reduction. The assault upon this stronghold resulted 
in a shameful defeat, and in the loss of thirty-six men. Instead 
of fighting valiantly, the hearts of the Israelites became as water. 
Joshua at once inquires the reason of God, and he is informed 
that this defeat is a judicial consequence of sin on the part of Is- 
rael. " They have taken of the accursed thing, and dissembled also, 



INFLUENCE. 



225 



and have put it among their stuff. ITeither will I be with you 
any more, except ye destroy the accursed from among you." 

The person who had transgressed was to be discovered by an 
appeal to the religious lot. The sin is very soon fixed by a pro- 
cess of exculpation and elimination upon the tribe of Judah; 
then upon the family of Zerah, then upon the family of Zabdi, 
then upon the family of Carmi, and then upon Achan himself. 

When there was no longer hope of concealment, he confesses 
his sin and discloses the place of concealment. Then Joshua and 
all the people with him took Achan, and the silver, and the gar- 
ment, and the wedge of gold, and his sons, and his daughters, 
and his oxen, and his asses, and his sheep, and his tent, and all 
that he had, and brought them into the valley of Achor, and all 
Israel stoned him with stones and burned them with fire, after they 
had stoned them with stones. And they raised over them a great 
heap of stones unto this day. And the place which was the scene 
of this terrible retribution, was called Achor, that is trouhle — to 
be a perpetual remembrance of this man's sin and punishment. 

This transaction was intended to make a deep moral impression 
on the people. For, twenty-four years after its occurrence, we 
find Joshua alluding to it in an address he makes to the people ; 
and in the words of our text he reminds them, that " that man per- 
ished not alone in his iniquity." 

Let us now consider the lessons we are to learn from this nar- 
rative. 

I. One of the most evident inferences we may draw from this 
story, is that the true design of punishment is not to secure the 
reformation of the offender. This is a doctrine of the Bible 
which modern legislators and judges continually ignore. It is 
a fact pregnant with instruction, that just so far as this doctrine 
of the Scripture is lost sight of in the administration of our 
criminal law, crimes have increased, and the guarantees which 
society professes to throw around life and property, are rendered 
nuE and void. A sickly sentimentality has dared to substitute 
imprisonment for life for the penalty which the law of God de- 
nounces against the murderer. The consequence is, that throu^=- 



226 



INFLUENCE, 



out our whole land the murderer and the assassin stalk abroad. 
We seem to have lost sight of the fact that crimes against the 
good order and peace of society demand punishment — that re- 
tributive justice is due to every infraction of law, irrespective of 
all the pleas for mercy which may be urged in behalf of the 
criminal. We can never depart with safety from the law which 
God has established for the government of human society ; and 
the experience of every human society which has invented ex- 
pedients for releasing the criminal from the penalty which his 
sin deserves, goes to prove that it is the will of God that every 
sin shall meet with its just recompense. Why is it that our 
whole land is full of assassins and murderers ? It is because our 
short-sighted rulers, seeking to be wiser and more merciful than 
God, have erected the penitentiary as a place of reformation for 
those whom God has declared to be worthy of death. And it 
cannot be doubted that God is visiting our whole land with a 
curse, because of the unexpiated crimes which our rulers and 
judges suffer to stalk abroad unwhipt of justice. The whole 
course of God's moral administration goes to show that the 
reformation of the criminal is neither the design nor the ordi- 
nary result of the infliction of His punishments. The Scriptures 
everywhere teach that sin is punished because it deserves to be 
punished, and because justice demands it. It is because the 
wages of sin is punishment, and not because punishment may 
lead to repentance, that penalties are attached to the infraction of 
law. The Scriptures teach even more than this. They teach 
that, while it is promotive of the best interests of society that 
crime should be punished, even the good of society is not the 
primary end of punishment — in other words, that judicial penal- 
ties are not just because they are expedient, but that they are 
expedient because they are just. And we may be assured that 
the evils which now curse our land, will never be remedied until 
we shall return to a recognition of these Scriptural views of the 
true design of punishment. 

When justice shall resume her rightful sway, and only then, 
may we hope to sit, each man under his own vine and fig-tree, 
with none to molest or make us afraid. 



INFLUENCE. 



227 



II. A second lesson to be learned from the story of Aclian is, 
that the organic constitution of i\iQ family is such that the sins 
of parents necessarily involve their children. Attempts have 
been made by infidels to render the character of God odious to 
men by representing the punishment of Achan's whole family as 
a wanton act of barbarous revenge. We are not particularly 
anxious to vindicate the character of God against such miserable 
cavillers. Three modes of justifying this indiscriminate sacrifice 
of the whole family have been suggested. 

The first is the supposition that the members of his family 
were accomplices in Achan's sin. This would be a satisfactory 
mode of accounting for the slaughter of the adult members of 
his family, but would not explain the visitation of vengeance on 
the younger members and the innocent cattle which belonged to 
him. 

The second mode of accounting for it is the supposition that 
they fell as the victims of a popular outbreak. This might do as 
an explanation, did not the narrative indicate that the punishment 
was inflicted by authority and with every appearance of calm 
dehberation. 

A third mode of explaining it is that they were punished by 
Divine authority and according to the law of God's government ; 
that He visits the iniquities of the fathers upon the unoffending 
children to the third and fourth generation. 

No matter which explanation you adopt, the fact illustrates the 
truth of the principle that such is the organic relation of the 
members of a family that the evil deeds of one affect all the rest. 
This truth is every day exemplified before our eyes. 

Look at the drunkard as he reels through the streets. May he 
not do what he will with his own ? He says he is a free man, and 
if he chooses to wreck his body and soul he injures no one but 
himself. But look at his family. Look at the wretched woman 
to whom, in earlier days, he plighted his love, and whom he 
promised to cherish, support, and nourish, now a lonely watcher 
by the dying embers of a desolate hearth, nursing amidst her 
tearful vigils the memories of her early love, and weeping over 
the graves of murdered joys : and look at his famished children 



228 



INFLUENCE. 



crying for bread, and vainly appealing to their besotted father 
for a morsel to appease the gnawings of their hunger. Or even 
in those cases in which the family are not reduced to poverty, see 
how the depraved tastes of the father are transmitted to the chil- 
dren, and his evil example combines with hereditary proclivities 
to fasten upon them the sins which have destroyed his life, and 
to cause them to rush into the same courses of excess and crime. 

See how the dishonesty or fraud of men conspicuous in official 
position brings ruin and disgrace on those who had no part in the 
commission of the sin. See them pointed out by the finger of 
scorn and even pursued to the seclusion they may seek in distant 
lands across the seas by the restless footsteps of Rumor, that 
sleepless hound that tracks the flight of crime to its most secret 
haunts, and that howls remorselessly at all who may, by domestic 
association or casual contact, have been tainted with the odor of 
fraud or corruption. 

See how the Infidel and the Scoffer bequeath their skepticism 
and ungodliness to their children and doom their innocent off- 
spring to grow up like themselves, abhorred by man and aban- 
doned by God. 

If it were necessary to enforce these arguments from example, 
I might give you names familiar to us all — in connection with 
which each one of those statements is illustrated. Thus our own 
observation, short and limited as it is, is sufficiently wide to con- 
firm the doctrine of the text, that such is the organic unity of 
the family that the sins of parents necessarily involve their 
innocent children in a common ruin. 

III. Another general principle taught by this narrative is that 
the whole body of any civil community is justly held responsible 
for the sins of the individuals composing it. That part of the 
history of Achan which illustrates this is G-od's displeasure against 
the whole congregation of Israel for the sin of this one man. 
He subjected their army to an inglorious defeat and visited 
thirty-six families with sad bereavement. Those thirty-six men 
who fell at Ai were not partakers of Achan's sin, but they were 
made partakers of his guilt. The sin of the individual was im- 



INFLUENCE. 



puted not only to his family, but to the whole nation, and a por- 
tion of the penalty was borne by it. There are some who find 
insuperable difiiculties in admitting that Adam's guilt is imputed 
to his posterity. Let such consider this narrative and see whether 
the doctrine that God can impute guilt to those who are person- 
ally innocent, does not derive support from this instance of God's 
dealings with His people. ^Nor is it so hard to understand the 
principle upon which God thus deals with communities and 
nations. Every community is made up of individuals, governed 
hy laws, to which each voluntarily confesses his allegiance. It is 
the duty of each member of such a community to obey the law 
and to promote both the observance of its precept and the execu- 
tion of its penalties. Now, if every man does his whole duty in 
loth these particulars, all infraction of law would cease : there 
could he no crime. But in every community there will be those 
who violate the laws. J^ow, if all the rest earnestly and honestly 
seek to have the laws obeyed, the criminal never could escape 
detection and punishment. The certainty of punishment would 
deter even the vicious from the commission of crime ; and though 
occasionally the restraints of fear would be broken through, yet 
only occasionally would this occur under the impulse of overmas- 
tering passion. It is evident that if each member of a community 
were held to a practical accountability for the sins of his neighbor, 
crime would be greatly diminished. If, for example, the loss by 
burglary or by incendiary conflagration were assessed on the in- 
habitants of a city, is it not clear that when the burglar or incen- 
diary should be grasped by the clutches of justice, the people 
would see to it that he should not escape condign punishment ? 
If the family of a murdered citizen were by law supported at the 
expense of the city or village in which the murder was committed, 
think you that the murderer would be suffered to walk off in the 
face of the broad day, or that with his single arm he could defy 
an indignant populace to take him alive ? These supposed cases 
illustrate the truth that it is in the power of every community to 
restrain and prevent crime by the cultivation of a healthy public 
opinion, and a prompt and firm administration of public justice. 
If on account of low views of morality and a perverted sympathy 



230 



INFLUENCE, 



for the criminal, crime is suffered to escape the arrest or the exe- 
cution of the law, then is that community held responsible in the 
sight of God and in the sight of mankind for the sins of its indi- 
vidual members. The ancient Egyptians recognized this principle 
in their penal code. " Whoever had it in his power to save the 
life of a citizen and neglected to do so was punished as his mur- 
derer; and if a person was found murdered, the city within 
whose bounds the murder had been committed was obhged to 
embalm the body in the most costly manner, and bestow on it the 
most sumptuous funeral." And although we do practically ignore 
it in these modern days of illumination, it is nevertheless true 
that in God's providential dealings with communities. He holds 
the community responsible for the sins of its members. You 
may ask, is this just ? I reply, this is not the question. The 
question is not one oi justice, but of fact, and a wide observation 
of the history of civil society will demonstrate beyond the shadow 
of a doubt that, in the long run, the penalty of unexpiated crime 
is paid by society at large. And if we are to learn any lesson 
from the story of Achan it is this, that it is not only natural but 
right that this should be so. 

lY. A more general principle which I derive from this narra- 
tive is that the sins of individuals not only involve them in ruin, 
but inflict irreparable injury on all who may be either directly or 
indirectly associated with them. This is seen to be true ajpriori 
by a consideration of the constitution of human society. The 
law of society is mutual dependence and influence. Cold isola- 
tion, though he may seek it, is impossible for man. You may 
take the wings of the morning and fly to the uttermost part of 
the sea, but you cannot sever the links that bind you to your fel- 
low-man. God has so united the whole human family by chains of 
sympathy and influence, that the actions of every man have their 
influence upon the character and destiny of every other individual 
of his species. The examples of men conspicuous before the public 
eye prove this. It is not necessary to be able to trace the influence 
of the more obscure members of human society, in order to the 
proof of the general principle. We know the less by the greater. 



INFLUENCE. 



231 



When a child projects a pebble across a brook, it is not neces- 
sary for us to feel the shock or to detect the vibration, in order 
to believe that the earth is really deflected from its orbit by the 
minute concussion. It is enough to know that the law of grav- 
itation is universal, pervading the ultimate atoms of matter. So, 
also, it is not necessary that we should be able to see in every 
human being a Jeroboam, who caused a whole nation to sin, in 
order to believe that no individual can be detached and made in- 
dependent of the rest. It is enough to know the general law of 
the reciprocal action and mutual relation of all animated beings. 
But if we could lift the veil which hides the moral world from 
our view, and selecting some one individual, could disentangle 
and detach aU his relations from their innumerable comphcations, 
and could investigate his whole moral history, we should find 
that " from the very first moment of his existence, his character 
has gone on daily and hourly, streaming with a more than electric 
fluid, with a subtle penetrating element of moral influence ; that, 
in whatever society he m.ingled, he left on their character secret 
but not imperceptible traces that he had been among them." 
We should see that every word he uttered or wrote has flashed 
along the hue of a thousand spiritual telegraphs centring in 
him ; that at every point along these lines, new centres of influ- 
ence were created, and that thus his thought, his sin, has been 
transmitted in silent but certain effect all around the world, to 
the uttermost circle of social existence. We should find that the 
moral forces thus generated, like the forces which pervade the 
material world, are indestructible, not a particle ever being lost, 
and that they will go on thrilling through the universe, all being 
taken up into the general system of cause and effect, and always 
operating somewhere. 

" As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake; 
The centre moved, a circle straight succeeds, 
Another still, and still another spreads ; 
Friends, parents, kindred, first it will embrace, 
His country next, and next all human race." 



'Eow this influence exerted by all is both voluntary and invol- 



232 



INFLUENCE. 



Tintary. Sometimes it is exercised with the conscious purpose of 
producing a result in those with whom the man is in actual con- 
tact ; and, so far as they are concerned, he may be considered as 
having control over it. But by far the larger proportion of each 
man^s influence is exerted involuntarily and unconsciously. And 
whether an action be performed with or without reference to the 
production of an effect on another, it produces that effect whether 
you will it or not. Once done, you cannot recall the influence of 
actions any more than the unfortunate companions of Ulysses 
could chain the winds when once released from the bag of ^olus. 
Thus every man is the unconscious and involuntary agent in the 
moulding of the character of others, remote from his immediate 
presence. And his involuntary influence is also constantly 
streaming forth upon all immediately around. Not like the in- 
termittent glow of the fire-fly, which may be quenched at will, 
but like the phosphorescent putrefactions of the sepulchre that 
emit a steady light ; not like the transient electric shocks of the 
torpedo, but like the magnetic current of the loadstone, which never 
grows feebler and which imparts its own polarity to every object 
within the sphere of its attraction. Such are some of the a 
jpriori arguments in favor of the proposition suggested by the 
text. Were it necessary to illustrate by arguments drawn from 
example, history would furnish us with innumerable instances. 
But I turn from the proof of the proposition to some of the ob- 
vious practical reflections and inferences drawn from it. 

What a vast responsibility rests upon each one of you in view 
of the momentous consequences that flow out of your conduct 
and character ! It is usual to say that it is an awful thing to die / 
but how much more solemn and awful a thing it is to live — to 
live in a world constituted like ours ! Do we realize as we ought, 
that each one of us is by his habits, by his opinions, by his words 
and by his actions, concerned in shaping the final destiny of all 
the rest ? Do you reaKze that you are daily tracing lines upon 
the characters of all around you, which though now invisible, like 
pencillings with sympathetic ink, will certainly become legible 
amidst the fires of the last day, and will reveal your handwriting 
and identify you as the author ? It is a solemn thing to hve, and 



INFLUENCE. 



233 



the longer life shall be, the more solemn it will be to die. For 
when we come to die, we shall not enter upon our final state with- 
out the company of those whom we have educated for heaven or 
hell. The specific doctrine of the text to which I w^ould most 
seriously direct jour attention is that when a man lives a life of 
sin and at last goes down to hell, he will certainly involve many 
others in his ruin. If any of you, my beloved hearers, should at 
last make your bed and lie down in eternal burnings, it will be 
written as the vindication of the justice of God in your everlast- 
ing torment, " That man perished not alone in his iniquity." 

I have already alluded to the fact that the sins of the parents 
involve their children in the temporal calamities which always 
follow a course of crime. I might go on to show that in most 
cases they leave a heritage of spiritual ruin to their unfortunate 
offspring. 

Behold the father of a family — himself ungodly, profane, and 
worldly ; — how can his children be any better than he ? What 
he is they will be of necessity, except in some rare instances, in 
which by an almost miraculous interposition they are snatched as 
brands from the burning. He may be a man despised by his 
neighbors, and without social influence, or perhaps unknown to 
the busy world around him. But there is one circle where he is 
supreme : it is in the bosom of his family. And when he dies, 
he will carry a sufficient number with him to justify the mourn- 
ful epitaph, " That man perished not alone in his iniquity." 

But suppose that he has wealth and social position. Suppose 
that he is surrounded by dependents and admirers, who feel hon- 
ored by his smile, and who are only too proud to minister to his 
passions and imitate his vices. How will these adventitious cir- 
cumstances help to increase the long train of those whom he 
drags down to a hopeless perdition! In his case, with how 
much greater emphasis may we repeat it, " That man perished 
not alone in his iniquity." 

But let us shift the scene. Look at that group of young men, 
as they stand closely huddled together about some favorite haunt of 
the idle and the profane. What is it that so engrosses their at- 
tention? Are they engaged in some interesting discussion on 



234 



INFLUENCE. 



subjects worthy of tlie attention of the intelligent and the re- 
fined ? Ah, no ! Their frequent idiotic laughter proves that 
thej are full of vain thoughts. Theirs is the mirth of ''fools 
who are making a mock at sin." And who is it that is able to 
give them such entertainment ? Is it one whom they all admire 
and respect ? Is it some lofty genius before whom they all stand 
as confessed inferiors ? And do they defer to his intelligence 
and wisdom ? And is their applause extorted from their genuine 
admiration of his person and character ? Alas ! no. He is a 
low and vulgar hiiffoon ; a depraved and ignorant dolt ; a leastly 
scavenger of all the foul abominations of the hrothel / a retailer 
oi filthy anecdotes and jests, treasured up in a mind capacious of 
such things ; a poor, pitiful object of contempt to the very men 
who hang upon his lips, and seem to drink in his slimy feculence 
lihe honey from Hymettus. And yet this poor fool, who thus 
prostitutes himself to their amusement, is thought to be so far 
beneath contempt that he is accounted to have no influence 
among his fellows. They seem to think that the leprosy of a 
heggar cannot infect the blood of a high-horn gentleman. But 
when he shall perish in his iniquity, it will be found at last that 
this despicable and obscure insignificant sinner, as they are 
pleased to regard him, has sown the seeds of corruption in the 
soil of many a congenial heart, and that "this man, too, perished 
not alone in his iniquity.'''' 

In further illustration of the text, let me draw one more pic- 
ture. Suppose we enter a group of young men collected in some 
place of resort, for the purpose of enjoying a midnight revel. 
The moment I enter, I see that there is one who is the master 
spirit, — the acknowledged leader of the rest. He has talents, he 
has wealth, he is distinguished by a frank and manly bearing. 
His beaming eye, his noble brow, show that the influence he 
wields is due to the native intellect and the magnanimous spirit 
which God had given him. Although really wicked, he bears, 
like Satan, some traces of the grandeur that would have ennobled 
him, unfallen. 

He has come to the city, he collects friends, congenial spirits 



INFLUENCE. 



235 



who admire the traits of character I have described. But he has 
been trained bj nngodlj parents, or he has cast off the instruc- 
tions of a pious ancestry. Perhaps he has thought it manly to 
be an infidel, to sneer at the rehgion of his father, and to scoff at 
the holy devotion of his mother. 

With such endowments and such appliances and such princi- 
ples, he is the leader of every bacchanalian rout. Proud of his 
talents, and anxious to maintain his ascendency, he is the tempter 
of innocent boys, who came hither with the down of purity still 
fresh upon their ruddy cheeks. 

With no fear of God before his eyes, he riots in all excess of 
sensual pleasure, and spends his nights in the house of her whose 
ways take hold on hell. Pegardless of the happiness or com- 
fort of others, he corrupts those who can be bribed to minister to 
his lusts, and deflowers the chastity of the poor or of the social 
inferiors by whom he is surrounded, without one compunctious 
smiting of conscience. At last, he goes forth into the great 
world to enter upon a still wider field of influence, without hav- 
ing left one good impression on his late companions. We look 
upon his paths, and see that the trail of the serpent is over them 
all. His former associates go forth too. Some partially recover 
from the effects of the insidious poison he instilled into their 
souls ; but the larger part have themselves gone on from bad to 
worse ; themselves corrupted, and now in turn the corrupters of 
others. He may live a long or a short life ; but at last he dies 
a miserable man, his talents squandered, his wealth a burden, his 
body bloated by wine and filled with the sins of his youth. He 
dies, and goes down to hell. And when he enters the world of 
woe, he shall be met at the very portals by the lost souls of those 
who have gone before him. The Apostle says, ''Some men's 
sins go before them to judgment, and some they follow after." 
His sins have gone before him in the persons of the wretched 
victims of his perverted wealth and influence ; in the innocence 
that he tempted, in the avarice that gave him the cup of debauch- 
ery in exchange for his gold, in the servile lewdness seduced by 
his bribes into base compliance, and in all the innumerable min- 
isters to his ambition, his vanity, and his lust. And even before 



236 



INFLUENCE. 



his eyes shall have ranged through the long vistas of his gloomy 
abode, or have glanced fearfully at the unquenchable flames of 
the lake of liquid fire, he will meet those there who know him 
and who will accost him as their destroyer. One shall say, " You 
first taught my innocent feet the way to dens of infamy and pol- 
lution, and here am /appointed to be your tormentor forever"; 
and when he turns to flee from these reproaches, another shall howl 
in his ear the bitter taunt, " You first put the poisoned wine-cup 
to my lips, and thus engendered that fatal thirst which destroyed 
my usefulness in life, and robbed me of heaven and another, 
all festering with sores, shall hiss the dreadful execration, " It 
was for you that I decked my bed with tapestry and adorned 
my person with ornaments ; for your yellow gold I bartered my 
body ; to your treacherous smiles I betrayed my frailty, and to 
your pampered luxury I yielded my homely virtue. Wow, with- 
ered, ruined, blighted, filled with that reproachful pain which 
rots the marrow and consumes the brain, I, whose bed you 
shared on earth, I am appointed to make your bed in hell, and 
heap upon you the ' waves of wretchedness.' " And another and 
another shall join their voices in the hue and cry, and shall fill 
the vaults of hell with their accusations. That same company of 
boon companions shall gather around him once more, not now as 
before, to admire, applaud, and imitate, but to curse him and 
curse the day which brought them in contact with his baleful in- 
fluence. " Some men's sins go before them to judgment, and 
some they follow after." And some they follow afier. Forever 
and anon, as his old associates gather around him, there shall be 
new accessions of those whom he had never known — of those 
who were born after he died, that shall join the wretched throng, 
and identify him as the destroyer of those who in turn destroyed 
them. Thus, through the long night of a dismal eternity, re- 
morse, the never-dying worm, shall prey upon his guilty soul, 
and it shall be written on his forehead with the finger of Divine 
retribution, " That man perished not alone in his iniquity." " Per- 
ished," do we say ? — He shall live forever, but 

" Live like scorpion girt by fire; — 
So writhes the soul remorse hath riven, 



INFLUENCE. 



287 



Unfit for earth, 1111(1001116(1 for heaven, 
Darkness above, despair beneath^ 
Around it flame, within it deaths 

Oh, young men, if any of you are determined to perish, I pray 
^ you to seek to perish by yourself. Go hide yourself in some 
mountain solitude, fly from this place where so many may be 
ruined by your example, and if possible avert from your soul the 
aggravated doom of that " man who perished not alone in his in- 
iquity." 

But if there be one depth of woe deeper than all, it will be re- 
served for the unfaithful minister who, charged with the high 
commission of a watchman to warn the wicked of his way, has 
healed slightly their hurt, and cried ^^Peace^^ ''^ jpeace " to the 
wicked, when there is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked. 
There will be a peculiar aggravation in his case, for it will be 
that of a man who had no motive to deceive either himself or 
others ; of one who had every opportunity of doing good, every 
opportunity of knowing the truth, and yet with the lamp of life 
in his hands, only used it to illuminate the broad road that leads 
to destruction. And as he is plunged do^vn, down into the bot- 
tomless pit of perdition, methinks his very cry for mercy will be 
stifled, when he casts his eye upwards and beholds the long train 
of lost spirits, once members of his admiring flock on earth, 
dragged down by his perverted influence to the lowest hell. Oh 
that a merciful God would save us from hell ; but if we must 
perish, may we at least be saved from the unspeakable woe of 
that man who perished not alone in his iniquity ! 



XXI. 



STEWAEDSHIP* 

" Give an account of thy stewardship." — Luke xvi. 2. 

The explanation of the Parable of the Unjust Steward has 
been by some commentators abandoned in despair, they affirming 
that a solution of its difficulties is impossible. That it presents 
great difficulty is evident from the fact that it has received innu- 
merable and most opposite interpretations. A parable is very 
often a locked edifice, and its correct interpretation requires a 
master-key. As in a great house there may be many doors, some 
of which will be unlocked by one key, while others will not ; so 
in the parable there are many parts which one theory of inter- 
pretation will explain, while there are other parts that refuse to 
yield any meaning whatever. And as in a great house all the 
doors will open to the touch of the master-key ; so, too, if we can 
get the master-key to the parable, all its intricacies become plain 
as day. 

"Without wearying you with a detail of all the labored efforts 
of the commentators to explain how our Lord could derive a^ 
lesson of instruction from the conduct of a dishonest man, and 
how the lord of the steward could commend him for his dishon- 
esty, I proceed at once to put into your hand the master-key 
which will open all the doors of this long-closed treasure-house. 

Let us first consider the parties. They were " a certain rich 
man," his " steward," who is called " unjust," and the " debtors " 
of the " rich man." 

The man must have been very rich in order to need a steward. 
His wealth did not consist of money, but of land — large farms, 



* A New-Year's sermon. 

(238) 



STEWARDSHIP. 



239 



the rent of wliicli was paid in the produce of the soil. The 
large landed proprietor committed the management of his estate 
entirely to his steward. This steward farmed out the land for 
such price as he thought fit, without every particular in the con- 
tract being made known to his lord. All that the latter cared to 
know was the gross revenue which his estate yielded. Up to this 
time the rich proprietor had not required any accurate reckoning 
with his steward, until, informed of the man's dishonesty, he 
determined to displace him. He had bestowed on him full con- 
fidence, and invested him with plenary powers in the making of 
all contracts with the small farmers who rented the land. 

'Now let us look at the steward. He was accused to his lord 
of having " wasted his goods." It is clear that he was not accused 
of such peculation as would have enriched him ; for, in prospect 
of his displacement, he contemplates the alternative of going to 
work, or of begging, as the means of future support. No, the 
man had only lived extravagantly and sumptuously, and as he 
had no property of his own, his malicious neighbors, who did not 
fare so well as he (just like many people now, when they see a 
man living better than themselves and know not where he gets 
the means), jumped to the conclusion that the steward was mis- 
appropriating his lord's revenues, and so they went and told on 
him. They concluded, of course, that he had been wronging his 
lord, and, with a great deal of virtuous indignation, they deter- 
mined to put a stop to it. At this point the lord is struck with 
their representations, and at once calls him to account. He says : 
" Give an account of thy stewardship." Bring me all the bonds 
of my tenants and let me compare them with the amounts which 
you have annually rendered to me. If the papers are produced 
his lord will be able at a glance to see whether the revenues 
annually accounted for tally with the farm contracts for the cur- 
rent year. And now at this point we see why he is called an 
" unjust steward." Observe, if the charges against him had been 
true he would not have been called unjust, but unfaithful ; his 
breach of trust and want of fidehty would not have been thus 
characterized. But he had not been unfaithful to his lord ; he 
had rendered to him every year what was a fair rental for his 



240 



STEWARDSHIP. 



lands. His unjustness appears in that he extorted from the 
farmers more than he had stated and paid to his lord. " He de- 
manded of them an excessive rent, and paid to him only a fair 
amount, so that the difference between what he received and 
what he rendered constituted a clear gain to himself," and ena- 
bled him to support the style and display which excited the envy 
of his poor neighbors ; perhaps, of these very farmers themselves. 
Hence, in casting about what he shall do, he determined to have 
two strings to his bow. He will smooth over his accounts with 
his lord and prove to him by written evidence that he has never 
wronged him ; that the bonds of the farmers correspond exactly 
with the annual revenue rendered him, and which was, in fact, 
an equitable revenue ; and he will make fair weather with the 
farmers themselves by an abatement of his customary extortion 
from them. Hence, he calls the farmers together and says to 
each in turn, " How much owest thou unto my lord ? " The first 
says, " A hundred measures of oil." Then said he, " Well, I 
have been conferring with my lord, and he agrees with me in 
thinking that this is an exorbitant rent, and I have prevailed on 
him to reduce it fifty per cent. I will exchange your old note 
of a hundred for a new one for fifty." Well, you see, that 
farmer went away, saying, " This steward is a good, upright 
man. I will never fail to do him a good turn, if the time ever 
comes when he shall need it." He then called a second, and 
said, " And how much owest thou ? " And he said, A hundred 
measures of wheat." With the same apparent show of modera- 
tion and uprightness he says, " I will exchange your old note for 
a new one with eighty instead of a hundred." And so he goes 
through the whole list of debtors. They all go away applauding 
the integrity and moderation of the steward. None of them will 
join now in defaming him. He has made fast friends of them. 
Now he comes to his lord with all his accounts ready for inspec- 
tion, and no discrepancy between the amounts due from the ten- 
ants and the amounts rendered is found. And now the " lord 
commended the unjust steward." This verse has always troubled 
the commentators ; for they never could understand why the rich 
man would commend his steward for doing that which, upon 



STEWAEDSHIP. 



241 



their theory, was only adding to the wrong he had already done 
in wasting his goods. They have all persisted in representing 
the steward as unfaithful to his employer, and never seem to 
have gotten the idea into their heads that he was unjust to the 
debtors, but faithful to his lord. Hence they never could explain 
the commendation which his lord bestowed upon him. But upon 
the interpretation which I have just given all is clear as noonday. 
His lord commended him because upon the examination of the 
papers he found that he himself had nothing to complain of. 
And as long as his own interests were not compromised he was 
not careful to inquire into the wrong inflicted on his tenants. 
Indeed, while he was no doubt informed of it, he commended 

the shrewdness of his steward The lord of this steward, 

so far as we know, retained him in his service as a wise and 
shrewd manager. He would hardly have dismissed him after 
commending him for his sagacity. 

In commenting upon this parable, our Lord says to His disci- 
ples, Now, I say unto you, make to yourselves friends of the 
mammon of unrighteousness, that, when ye fail, they may receive 
you into everlasting habitations." This verse also has been a 
great stumbling-block. And it is not without its difficulty. In 
the first place, the meaning is obscured by the inaccurate render- 
ing of a preposition. The translation ought not to be " friends^ 
of the mammon of unrighteousness," but "friends hy means of 
the mammon of unrighteousness" {vide Winer's Grammar, p. 
460, and Lange on Luke xvi. 9). In the second place, the G-reekr 
text upon which the English version is based is generally con- 
ceded not to be the true reading. Our version very correctly 
translates " that when ye fail they may receive," etc. But the 
best manuscripts in Greek and the New Version read, " that when* 
it fails," i. e.^ when the mammon fails, or is exhausted^ etc. A 
paraphrase of the verse which conveys its exact meaning may aid' 
you to understand it : "I say unto you, make to yourselves 
friends by means of the mammon of unrighteousness, so that 
when this mammon is exhausted, these friends thus made may 
receive you into the everlasting tabernacles." 

Having translated the passage^ it remains to' be seen how it is' 



242 



STEWARDSHIP. 



to be explained. Does our Lord mean to commend the unjust 
steward ? Does He hold him up for imitation ? I answer, He 
does not commend him for his conduct in so far as it was unjust 
toward the farmers, but He does commend it at the point where 
it began to be just ; at the point when he began to make his 
friends. He in effect says : " Where this steward ended do you 
begin. He ended his career by using his place and power, his 
control over the mammon which, up to this time, he had umight- 
eously appropriated to his own selfish ends — he ended his career 
by using these things righteously, justly, and thus made a host 
of friends. Do you the same with the mammon which may be 
under your control. Use it wisely ; do not appropriate it to your 
own selfish gratification, but act like him, and make friends, who, 
going before you to heaven, will welcome you, when you get 
there, with outstretched arms. True, his motive was a bad one, 
but his conduct was wise. Do Kkewise, only do it with the right 
motive. Use your means not for yourself, but for others, and 
you shall reap the eternal reward." 

I have thus explained this parable at length, because I know 
that it is unintelligible to the vast majority of the thoughtful 
readers of the 'New Testament, and he renders a great service to 
his hearers who can succeed in clearing up for them any of the 
dark sayings of our Lord. I hope that this parable will shine 
with a new light into your souls ; for rightly considered, especially 
when taken in its historical connection, it is one of the most 
striking examples of the elevated didactic wisdom of our Lord. 

Turning away from the exegetical consideration of this passage, 
I wish to make a homiletical and practical use of only one part 
of it. "We are entering now upon the work and toil of a new 
year. And it seems especially appropriate before we launch out 
upon it to inquire, what have we done for God ? And this is 
suggested by the text : " Give an account of thy stewardship^ 
For it may be that our Lord, seeing we have been .unfaithful, 
may be saying : " Thou mayest no longer be steward." 

When applied to us the text assumes that God is the paramount 
owner of all that we are and all that we have ; that in all his ac- 
tivity man is called on earth to be the steward of God ; that he 



STEWARDSHIP, 



243 



is not to live for himself at all ; that as steward he is placed in a 
dependent position ; that he is pledged to a conscientious faith- 
fulness ; that he will be held to a strict account. " Give an ac- 
count of thy stewardship." 

Against you as God's steward on earth, there are several accu- 
Bations preferred by the world, by the devil, and by your fellow- 
members of the church, and He who hears them all will examine 
them impartially and carefully to the last one, and before He 
renders His decision He is saying to you at the opening of a 
^ew-Year's account, " Give an account of last year's stewardship." 

Over what things has God appointed you His steward ? 

First. As suggested immediately by this parable. He has made 
you steward over a certain amount of property, more or less, as 
the case may be — some of you more, some less. " It is a striking 
proof of the practical tendency of the Gospel morality that our 
Saviour has regarded the use and possession of earthly riches as a 
subject of sufficient weight to be particularly handled by Him in 
a triad of parables : viz., the parables of the ' Kich Fool,' of the 
* Unjust Steward,' of ' Dives and Lazarus,' not to reckon a num- 
ber of hints occurring here and there in His discourses." How, 
then, have we employed our Lord's money ? There is often a 
great deal of vague declamation about giving all to God and 
exercising stern self-denial and refraining from this unnecessary 
luxury, and from that needless expense ; and while there is a 
great deal of truth in what is said, the principle involved in it all 
would, if carried out to its logical results, bring the whole com- 
munity down to prison fare — a bed of straw and bread and water. 
This is not Scriptural ; it is at variance with the dictates of the 
enlightened Christian conscience. 

Let us see how, as stewards of God, He would have us expend 
the means He puts into our hands. 

There are three great objects to which our means ought to be 
appropriated so as to meet the Divine approval. These are : — 

1. A certain proportion ought to be taken for defraying per- 
sonal and family expenses. 

2. Another portion may be allowed to accumulate as capital, 

3. A fixed proportion ought to be devoted to God. 



244 



STEWARDSHIP. 



'No one doubts that the first of these objects ought to be at- 
tended to. Every one must be housed and clothed and fed. 
This duty need not be urged ; the danger is that this duty be the 
only one attended to. 

In regard to the second there is difference of opinion. Some 
fanatics go so far as to say that a Christian has no right to acquire 
property. They say it is a distrust of God's providence and care 
to store up money for the future provision for themselves and 
families. They support their opinions by the wresting of such 
Scriptures as these : " Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon 
earth"; "Woe to him that ladeth himself with thick clay"; 
" Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for the miseries that 
shall come upon you," etc. The conmion sense of mankind, as 
well as Scripture compared and interpreted, is so totally opposed 
to these views that no one carries them out in practice. The 
Scriptural authority for this common-sense view is very decisive. 
The meaning of the passages I shall quote is that property in 
itself is a blessing, and only becomes a curse if improperly em- 
ployed : " The hand of the diligent maketh rich "; " He that 
gathereth in summer is a wise son "; " The blessing of the Lord 
maketh rich, and He addeth no sorrow with it"; "And the Lord 
hath blessed my master Abraham greatly, and he is become great, 
and He hath given him ilocks and herds and silver and gold "; 
"And Isaac sowed in that land, and received in the same year 
one hundredfold, and the Lord blessed him, and the man waxed 
great and went forward and grew until he became very great." 
It would be hard to prove against such Scriptures as these that 
it is a sin to die rich. 

I thus frankly and fully declare that the Scriptures teach the 
propriety and necessity, not only of adequately providing for 
present wants and comforts, but also of accumulating property 
for commercial and useful purposes and for the future wants of 
ourselves and families. These apparent concessions, some might 
think, will counteract or weaken the arguments to be used to 
enforce the third department of our duty as stewards : viz., the 
portion to be allotted to the service of God. Truth requires no 
concealment or suppression of anything. It is our whole record 



STEWARDSHIP. 



245 



as stewards whicli is under review, and we are to remember that 
the same authority which says, " Honor the Lord with thy 
substance," also says, " But if any provide not for his own, and 
especially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, 
and is worse than an infidel " (1 Tim. v. 8). 

The third department of stewardship, viz., that part of our 
property to be devoted to the service of God, includes three divis- 
ions : — 

First. Almsgiving, or charitable contributions to the poor, or 
to benevolent institutions — such as orphanages, widows' homes, 
and so forth. 

Second. The support of the ministry, both in our country and 
in foreign lands. 

Third. Free-will offerings. 

In regard to the first of these divisions, the money which we 
give to the poor, God has been pleased to designate a loan to 
Him. " He that giveth to the poor lendeih to the Lord." 
" Blessed is he that considereth the poor ; the Lord will deliver 
him in time of trouble." 

But in order that we may perform this duty intelligently, the 
Holy Spirit led the Apostle to lay down a special rule. 

Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by 
him in store as God hath prospered him, that there be no gather- 
ings when I come." This passage has been grievously misunder- 
stood, and made to teach the propriety of Sunday-morning col- 
lections in church for the support of the Gospel. Whereas it 
was Paul's direction to the Corinthians how to provide in a special 
emergency alms for the suffering saints in Jerusalem, so as to 
avoid taking up a collection when he should come to preach to 
them. In effect he says : " Do this in order that there be no 
necessity for a collection when I come." 

Let us now analyze this rule for almsgiving : (a) " Let every 
one of you." This shows that the duty of almsgiving is incum- 
bent upon all, rich and poor, young and old. There is nothing 
in the Bible that exempts even the poor from giving alms. 

(5) " Lay by him in store." Literally, " Lay by him at home " 
(the^(^m eauto of the original, being the idiomatic equivalent of 



246 



STEWARDSHIP. 



the French, chez moi, and the German, hei sich selhst). This 
shows that it is the duty of every one to give alms not simply 
when he is asked or when occasion arises, but to store up before- 
hand a certain portion of his gettings, so as to be ready to give 
liberally upon a sudden call. The advantages of this plan are ob- 
vious. Things done without premeditation are generally ill-done. 
So when there has been no deliberate comparison of the claims 
of different objects and no settled determination of what sum to 
give, the amount must be left pretty much to chance or to the 
impulse of the moment. 

The passage does not mean that the proportion should be men- 
tally set apart, but that it should be actually set apart. Those 
who are disinclined to keep written accounts should literally com- 
ply with the rule, and have a box appropriated to the keeping of 
their alms separate from their other moneys. 

A great man and a great scholar, who certainly is not averse 
to the use of the pen, told me many years ago that he kept in his 
study a little treasury-box with three apartments — one marked 
" Tithes," another " Free-will Offerings," and a third " Alms." 
There was a holy philosophy in this. It is much harder for a 
man to quiet his conscience after appropriating to himself actual 
money once dedicated to God than after making a fraudulent 
cross-entry in a ledger. 

But business men and merchants who keep all their money in 
banks ought to have openings in their ledgers in which to credit 
" Alms " and " Tithes " and " Free-will Offerings," each with its 
due proportion of " Profit and Loss," and to credit each with all 
paid out to God and the poor. 

ic) " On the first day of tlie week." There is no phrase in 
the Bible that has been so grievously and mischievously misinter- 
preted as this. 

First. It has been made the foundation of the doctrine that 
collections should be taken up every Sunday. But the Greek 
does not read, " on the first day of the week," but "on one of 
the Sabbaths." Paul was ordering a specific contribution for a 
single object, viz., the poor saints at Jerusalem; and he says 
"on one of the Sabbaths"; that is, some of you on one Sabbath 



STEWARDSHIP, 



247 



and some on another, or each of you on every Sabbath, if he 
chooses. 

Secondly. This has been made the foundation for the false 
doctrine that the support of the ministry and of the church is to 
be derived from these public contributions, whereas the object 
for which the Apostle ordered this contribution was alms. 

But this clause shows that the Sabbath is an appropriate time 
for carrying out the injunction to " lay by at home." It does 
not mean that it is the proper day for inquiring how much a man 
has prospered. But it means that it is a religious act, appropriate 
to the Sabbath, to consecrate to God's poor the amount deter- 
mined on at the close of the preceding week. The inference 
from the passage is that the practice of storing up for future dis- 
tribution among the poor should be adopted as a person receives 
his wages or income, be it weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly ; 
and with respect to those who live by irregularly accruing profits, 
such as of agriculture, trade, or commerce, this duty should be 
immediately performed after taking account of the year's work, 
or after making the balance-sheet and determining the debit of 
" Profit and Loss." 

{d) "As God hath prospered him." 

In this is involved the idea of projportion. This is the IvTew 
Testament rule in regard to alms. In this matter Christ has not 
bound His people down to any limit. When He gives much He 
expects His people to give more and more, in proportion to the 
growth of their incomes. Indeed, if He had laid down an iron 
rule OD this point, it would have been in direct contravention to 
His specific command that alms should be given so secretly that 
nobody should know anything about the amount thus bestowed. 
But the Apostle, carrying out the spirit of the sermon of our 
Lord, says : " In proportion as God has prospered you." Yon 
know how great has been your prosperity, and nobody has any 
business with your alms. That matter is between you and your 
Father in heaven. " Thy Father, which seeth in secret, Himself 
shall reward thee openly." 

It is clear that the whole passage teaches the duty of systematic 
laying aside of your earnings at home^ in order that you may be 



248 



STEWARDSHIP. 



able to contribute to'the poor saints as often as their necessities 
require, without resorting to collections in the church assemblies, 
when one would give bj impulse, or caprice, or accident, or give 
nothing at all. 

Second. The second division of religious giving comprises the 
portion of our substance which we owe directly to God. In this, 
God claims of all His people His right. In giving to the poor. 
He says, we " lend to the Lord but in withholding from Him 
what He claims as His right, we are said to " rob God." We do 
not " rob " bj refusing a loan, but we do rob when we fail to pay 
a debt. J^ow, does God in His Word tell us precisely how much 
He claims as the portion He will accept from His people as His 
share ? The plain answer is that in all ages of the church, from 
Abraham to the present moment. He has indicated that the ren- 
dering of less than a tenth of a man's income is a robbing of God. 
J^ow, in the J ewish church this tenth was devoted exclusively to 
the maintenance of the ministry and the ordinances of God's 
bouse. And Paul, in allusion to this provision for the ministry 
under the old economy, says : " Even so hath the Lord ordained 
that they which preach the Gospel shall live of the Gospel." That 
is, as under the old economy, God prescribed that the ministry, and 
all who aided them in the service of religion directly, should be 
supported by the contribution of a tenth of the income of His 
people ; so God expects the ministry of the church and the elder- 
ship of the church to be supported now. You may be startled 
by the proposition that the elders of a church ought to receive 
pecuniary compensation for their church work, but it is the teach- 
ing of the Apostle Paul. He says : " Let the elders that rule 
well be counted worthy of double honor, for it is written, ' Thou 
shalt not muzzle the ox that tread eth out the corn.' " All the 
scholars agree that this has reference to pecuniary compensation 
for the time abstracted from their secular business in the service 
of the church. 

I mention this, however, now, only incidentally, lest you should 
think a tithe of your incomes would be too large a provision for 
the salaries of the ministers of the church. 

There is the greatest ignorance among ministers, and great 



STEWARDSHIP. 



249 



misapprehension among the people on the subject of the Jewish 
tithe. It was not collected mider stringent regulations. On the 
contrary he might, and the covetous Jew did, often fail to 
"bring" his tithe to the storehouse. If he did not bring it 
voluntarily, there was no compulsory process by which it could 
be wrung from him. It was a matter which rested between him 
and his God. The rulers of the people took no cognizance of 
his dereliction. But God, whom he " robbed," did. Thus you 
see that what is called the " Law of the Tithe," was only the rule 
of proportion by which God taught His people what amount of 
their yearly income He would accept as a token of their acknowl- 
edgment of His right to all their possessions. And in the degen- 
erate days of the church, when piety was almost extinct, and 
when the priests failed to teach the people their duty in this 
matter, God visited them with drouths and all manner of agri- 
cultural disaster, and caused the priests to become " contemptible 
and base in the eyes of the people," because they had, in the lan- 
guage of Malachi, " corrupted the covenant of Levi "; that is, 
because they had relaxed the demand for the tithe, which was 
" the covenant of Levi." In precisely the same way the ministry 
in our day, by their failure to indoctrinate the people as to the 
demand which God makes upon them for the support and main- 
tenance of all His ministers and the ordinances of His house, 
have, in a manner, become " contemptible and base" before all 
the people. Instead of fearlessly proclaiming their right to live 
of the Gospel, they too often stand, like beggars, hat in hand, 
entreating that they may be permitted to starve on the meagre 
pittance doled out to them by a covetous and selfish people. And 
hence it has come to pass that most people look upon money paid 
for the support of the minister at home or for the missionary to 
the heathen as a charity, instead of a debt owed to God himself. 

I wish, while on this subject, to explain briefly the " free-will 
offering." It is absolutely distressing, as well as amusing, to hear 
some people talk of their " free-will offerings." 

A free-will offering was brought by the pious Jew on a partic- 
ular emergency as a thank-offering for deliverance from some 
special peril, or on the experience of signal blessing. It was 



250 



STEWARDSHIP. 



never appropriated or intended to supplement any deficit in the 
support of the priests ; and there was no room for a free-will 
offering on the part of any one who had not hrought his tithe. 
A free-will oft'ering was something over and above what the 
offerer owed to God. Only after all obligations were discharged 
could one dare to present a free-will offering. 

You are now prepared to see for yourselves whether any of 
you could, if you desired, bring to God a free-will offering in 
acknowledgment of His signal mercies to you during the past 
year. If your givings to the support of the Gospel in this church 
and in our missionary work in foreign lands have not been one- 
tenth of your income in the past year, you are in no condition to 
respond to the loud call made by the Committee of Sustentation, 
which you find on a circular put in your pews to-day, in a free- 
will offering. You must be just to God before you can be generous. 

Some, I know, have given more than a tenth of their gains ; 
some only a portion ; some nothing. The account is between 
all and God. Be assured God has a controversy with all who 
have fallen short. God says by Malachi : " Ye are cursed with 
a curse, for ye have robbed Me." 

The present is a favorable moment for God's people to give 
an account of their stewardships. 

But how can you give an account of that of which you keep 
no account ? If your offerings to God have been made simply 
upon impulse, or only incidentally when you happened to be at 
church, without anj systematic calculation of your resources, you 
may be perfectly sure that you have not given one-hundredth 
part of what will be acceptable to God. 

I therefore advise every one to go home and make up a strict 
account of his income for the year 1881 ; then a statement of all 
he has contributed to the support of the Gospel in this church 
and in the missionary fields, and if the amount falls below one- 
tenth of the income, to bring the difference to the deacons, to be 
applied at once by them in raising the amount asked for by the 
Secretary of the Missions. Then you will be prepared to render 
an account of your stewardship unto the great " Lord " to whom 
all you have belongs. 



STEWARDSHIP. 



251 



The adoption of this rule of voluntary tithing is recommended 
bv four considerations. 

First. It has the sanction of Divine authority. 

Second. It was practiced by the early church for more than a 
thousand years after the Apostles. 

Third. It is the only equitable plan for distributing the burdens 
of a church according to the abilities of the people. 

Fourth. It is the certain condition of worldly prosperity. It 
is impossible for God to lie. He says : " Honor the Lord with 
thy substance and with the first fruits of all thine increase ; so 
shall thy barns be filled with plenty and thy presses shall burst 
out with new wine." " Bring ye all the tithes into the store- 
house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts, if I 
will not open the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing 
that there shall not be room enough to receive it." 

If the time permitted, I could give you extracts from more 
than a hundred letters, testifying in substance to the fact that 
God has fulfilled this promise in a wonderful manner to the 
writers of them. One of these letters I have never been able to 
read without tears. In the course of it the writer says : " My 
practice for years had been to devote the tenth to God. But 
closer investigation convinced me that the tithe and free-wiU 
offering together claimed one-third of my income, and alms a 
tenth of the remainder. And although by reason of an insuffi- 
cient salary I am often straitened, yet a covenant God keeps me 
up and bestows His help in various ways. I could not feel satis- 
fied to come short of this, and am often troubled by the thought 
that I came so late to the knowledge and practice of my duty." 

I close this part of this discussion with the following extract 
from an article written by a minister of our church who has studied 
this subject more profoundly than any other man in this country : 

" The census of 1870 discloses some amazing facts. 



Cost of dogs in the United States $10, 000, 000 

Support of criminals 12, 000, 000 

Fees of litigation 35,000,000 

Cost of tobacco and cigars 610, 000, 000 

Support of grog-shops 1,500,000,000 

Whole cost of ardent spirits. 2,200,000,000 

Salaries of all the ministers 6, 000, 000 



252 



STEWARDSHIP. 



" Consider this country's estimate of the Gospel ministry ; the 
ministers of all the denominations grudgingly supported on a 
sum less by $4,000,000 tha7i the dogs of the land I What an 
insult to the King of kings ! Enough to perpetuate the curse 
upon a God-forsaken land ! " Hear old Andrew Fuller : " The 
love of money will, in all probability, prove the eternal over- 
throw of more characters among professing people than any other 
sin, because it is almost the only crime that can be indulged and 
a profession of religion at the same time be supported." " What 
the Church of Christ most lacks is faith in God. Her unbelief 
dishonors God and impoverishes herself. Were it not for unbe- 
lief and covetousness, what advances might she not have made ! 
Did her fidelity correspond in the lowest measure with the tran- 
scendent position she occupies and the glorious privileges she 
possesses ; did she freely give as she has freely received, the 
dark places of the earth which are now full of the habitations of 
cruelty would long since have been illuminated by the glorious 
sun of the Gospel, the conquests of divine truth would have been 
complete, the empire of Satan would be dismantled and over- 
thrown, and the glorious shout would now be thundering through 
the temple of God, Alleluiah ! The kingdoms of the earth are 
become the kingdoms of our God." 

But it is not only as the stewards of money that God calls you 
to account. This is only one, and by no means the most import- 
ant one, of the Master's goods, which many are accused to Him 
of wasting. 

There is another talent which has been committed to you for 
improvement, and that is your jpersonal influence. There is a 
difference between this trust and the preceding in this, that 
while God only Q\3^m.% part of your money. He demands that all 
of your influence shall be employed for His glory. He demands 
that every act of your daily life shall illustrate the doctrines you 
profess. He demands that nothing you do shall misrepresent the 
Lord Jesus, whom He has set before you, and whom you profess 
to have taken as your example. Every part and property of 
your nature and every moment of your existence have been 
bought — paid for with " precious blood." And as the interest 



STEWARDSHIP. 



253 



to whicli you are pledged is opposed by every other, you cannot 
yield to any claimant, even for a moment, without lending your- 
seK during that moment to a hostile party, so that there is no 
alternative but this of devoting yourself exclusiv^ely to Christ — 

? your character is to be the reproduction of the character of 
Christ. The disinterestedness which appeared in Christ, the 
purity of Christ, the harmlessness of Christ, the separation of 
Christ from sinners — all these ought to reappear in your char- 
acter and external conduct, and if tempted to lend but a particle 
of influence to any other claimant than Christ, your reply is at 
hand, " I am not my own, I am Christ's ; He has put it out of 
my power to give Him more than belongs to Him, for He has 
purchased and demands the whole through every moment of 
time." ]^ow let us enumerate rapidly the means of influence 
which all possess in a greater or less degree. 

Knowledge is a means of influence ; Scholarship is a means of 
influence ; Scientific attainments are a means of influence ; Pro- 
fessional shill is a means of influence ; Official position either in 
the State or in the Church, or in the University, is a means of 
influence ; Social position is a means of influence ; Speech is a 
powerful force and a means of influence. The most casual remark 
lives forever. There is not a word you have uttered during the 
past year that has not a moral history, and we are specifically 
warned that in the final taking account of our stewardship, by 
our words we shall be justified or condemned. 

Relationship^ whether natural or artificial, is a means of influ- 
ence — of parent to child, of wife to husband, of sister to brother, 
of teacher to pupil. " There is no relation of hfe which does not 
invest the person sustaining it with some degree of influence, and 
which does not afford him the power of exerting an influence in 
it which no other being on earth possesses." 

Self-denial is a means of influence. It is a means of influence 
both directly and indirectly. Directly it increases the means of 
benevolence which self-indulgence would have lavished on itself, 
and these by increasing usefulness are augmenting influence. 
But the influence which a man acquires by this increase of actual 

. means is as nothing compared Vv"ith that which he obtains by the 



254 



STEWARDSHIP. 



fact when it comes to be known, — that he denies himself in order 
to obtain it. The amount which he saves by his self-denial may- 
be only an additional mite ; but the fact that he habitually denies 
himself in order to obtain it as a means of doing good, will ulti- 
mately invest him with a greater moral influence than the stranger 
to self-denial, though the giver of thousands, can ever possess. 

^' Compassion is a means of influence. And the deep anxiety 
which the earnest Christian ought to feel and does feel to snatch 
the firebrands from the flames and quench them in the blood of 
the cross, imparts a depth of tenderness to his tones and an energy 
to his efforts which give them a power over the hard heart beyond 
that of the most original truths unfeelingly spoken, or the stern 
authority of law itself." Prayer is influence. All those other 
things which I have described as means of influence become spir- 
itually useful only by that power which descends in answer to 
prayer. Other means may be influential ; but the amount of 
their influence is calculable, bearing some proportion to the power 
employed ; but prayer, by engaging a Divine power, sets all cal- 
culation at defiance. 

And now the Lord and Master is saying to you all, " Give an 
account of thy stewardship in the employment of all these means 
of infiuence and usefulness which I have placed in thy hands." 
How have you, who have acquired influence over the young men 
of these institutions, by your knowledge, your scholarship, your 
scientific attainments, your professional skill — ^how have you used 
your influence ? Have you hidden your light under a bushel or 
under a bed ? or have you caused it to shine upon them with 
baleful fires ? Have you rendered tippling and drunkenness re- 
spectable in their eyes, because they see them associated with 
high literary and scientific attainments ? 

How have you that occupy official position in the State used 
your influence derived from such position ? How have you who 
are conspicuous members in the Church of God used the influence 
which your elevation above the ordinary members of the church 
has given you ? The Lord of the unjust steward said, How is 
it that I hear this of thee ? And in the name of our Lord and 
Master I repeat the question, How is it that I hear this of thee, 



STEWAHDSHIP, 



255 



that yon frequent bar-rooms, and drink whiskey, just like men 

who have not the fear of God before their eyes ? 

" Give an account of thy stewardship," ye that have social posi- 
tion, ye that have the power of speech, ye that have money, ye 
that have heard the oft-repeated injunction. Deny thyself and 
take thy cross, ye that have had unbarred access to a throne of 
grace, if ye would only choose to go there. " Give an account 
of thy stewardship." " Give an account of thy stewardship," 
all ye that have named the name of Christ and are therefore 
expected to depart from all iniquity. Have ye, as in duty bound, 
avoided all appearance of evil, even when there might have been 
no real evil in all your conduct ? Have ye given no occasion to 
the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme ? Have ye given no occa- 
sion for the vulgar sneer, and the ribald jest at the " elect " of 
God, in countenancing by your presence a scene of excess and 
unwarrantable hilarity ? " How is it that I hear this of thee," 
that ye have been eating meat offered to idols ? Do ye not see 
(if it is all true) that in these concessions which you may have 
made to the spirit of the world, and of good fellowship, that you 
have been casting your pearls before svnne ; and what can you 
expect but that they shall turn again and rend you ? 

What husbandman would not be discouraged in his work if, as 
fast as he sowed a field in corn and the good seed had begun to 
sprout, one-half of his laborers should go into the field by night 
and pluck up the expanding germ and sow tares in its place ? 
And yet this is no unfair representation of the case of many a 
minister of the Gospel. One day in seven, he plants the good 
seed of the Word, and warns men against covetousness, against 
drunkenness, against worldly conformity, against all ungodhness, 
and the other six days, many of those whose lives ought to be 
the living exemplification of his teachings, are engaged in nulli- 
fying all his teachings by lives of covetousness, intemperance, 
worldly conformity, and practical godlessness. " How is it that 
I hear this of thee % " 

Give cm account of thy stewardship^ What if in view of 
your neglect of these things and of your failure to use righteously 
the Mammon over which God has given you control. He should 



256 STEWARDSHIP, 

saj, " Thou mayest no longer be steward ! " The solemn reck- 
oning cannot be evaded at the last, when the stewardship of the 
whole life is to be accounted for. 

Some merchants make a " trial balance sheet " every month in 
order that they may know their financial condition all through 
the year. The reckoning to which I invite you resembles these 
" trial balances." When life is ended, it will be too late to cor- 
rect errors. There will be no room on the page for " E. E." 
But now, before the final account is rendered, you have the op- 
portunity of reviewing and correcting the past. If, in looking 
back over the year just ended, you find in regard to disbursing 
your Lord's money that you have been criminal, now is the time 
to begin to do better. 

Renew your consecration to Him ; and then you will not " lie 
to the Holy Ghost " when you sing : 

Were the whole realm of nature mine, 
That were a present far too small ; 

Love so amazing-, so divine, 
Demands my soul, my life, my all." 



XXII. 

CONSOLATION 

And tlie cup was found in Benjamin's sack." — Genesis xliv. 13. 

The storj of Joseph in Egypt, as recorded from the forty- 
second to the forty-ninth chapters of Genesis, is one of the most 
beautiful and touching narratives in all literature. Let me recall 
as much of it as will enable you to see the bearing of the text. 

There being famine all over the face of the earth, the aged 
Jacob sent his ten sons down into Egypt to buy corn. Joseph, 
who many years before had been sold into slavery in Egypt by 
these very young men, was now in authority ; and after selling 
them the corn, kept one of the young men in prison, but prom- 
ised to release him, if upon their return to procure another supply 
they would bring their youngest brother, Benjamin, with them. 
This they did, although it nearly broke Jacob's heart to suffer tlie 
lad, who was very dear to him, to go with them. For after 
J oseph had been sold into Egypt, the affection which Jacob had 
for him was transferred to his brother Benjamin. Upon their 
return to Egypt, they were royally entertained by Joseph ; and 
then dismissed with their sacks full of corn, and the purchase- 
money secretly deposited in their sacks' mouths Joseph also 
instracted his steward in like manner to put his silver cup in the 
mouth of Benjamin's sack. 

The next day dawned auspiciously, and full of high spirits on 
account of the happy termination of their expedition, they turned 
their faces homeward. Everything had turned out well. They 
had been graciously received ; had been honored with a sumptu- 
ous banquet ; their brother Simeon had been restored to them, 
and their fear of being obliged to go home without corn, com- 

(257) 



258 



CONSOLATION. 



pletely dispelled by knowing that tlieir sacks were full. And 
now the obelisks of Egypt were disappearing behind them, and 
the pyramids were sinking in the distance. Congratulating each 
other on their happy escape from the distress into which they 
had been placed by the demand which Joseph had made about 
Benjamin, they were full of exuberant joy. 

But as they look back over their shoulders, lo ! a cloud of dust 
and a band of pursuing horsemen ! They are overtaken, are 
commanded to halt, but although alarmed, their fears are quieted 
by recognizing in the captain of the pursuing band no other than 
Joseph's steward — the man who the day before had treated them 
with the highest consideration. But his countenance is severe. 
He at once charges them with robbing his master. They indig- 
nantly deny the charge. They denounce such ingratitude. They 
remind him of all their previous honest dealing — their bringing 
back the money for the first purchase, which they supposed had 
accidentally been taken away. 

" The matter may be easily settled," say they. " Search us 
and search our sacks. With whomsoever of thy servants the cup 
is found, both let him die, and we also vnll be my Lord's bonds- 
men." Secure in conscious rectitude, " they speedily took down 
every man his sack to the ground. And he searched and began 
at the eldest, and left at the youngest ; and the cup was found in 
Benjamin's sack." 

Utterly overwhelmed, they go back to the city, silent, down- 
cast, despairing, each one asking himself, How did this cup get 
into our baggage at all and why was it put into Benjamin's sack ? 

There are few of us who have not been called more than once 
to pass through just such a trial as this. "We have often said, 
Why in Benjamin's sack ? A railroad accident occurs, and while 
hundreds have escaped, our darling child is among the dead. A 
great shipwreck happens, and our loved one is among the lost. 
A tornado sweeps over the town, and our dwelling is demolished. 
There is a great bank robbery and the thieves have gotten our 
package of bonds. 

Two questions occur to every thoughtful mind in connection 
with the subject of human experience. Why is it that every- 



CONSOLATION. 



259 



body is sooner or later in life called to pass through a fiery fur- 
nace of affliction ? And why, when God smites us, does He 
always strike the tenderest spot ? 

I. That there is a vast amount of sorrow in the world, every- 
body knows. The crowds that gather on festivals, or that congre- 
gate in theatres or opera-houses, or that flock to the hilltops on a 
summer's evening, seem to be happy, because they wear smiling 
faces ; but these are their society faces. Let the excitement of 
the moment subside, and shadows darken them. There is a skel- 
eton in the closet at home. 

A wayward son, a dissipated husband ; a faithless, jealous, or 
undutif ul wife ; a recreant lover, disappointed hopes, buried loves, 
defeated schemes of ambition, bodily pains, chronic ill-health, 
nervous prostration, and ten thousand causes of sorrow are pres- 
ent in one or another form in all our houses. 

Those religious teachers who tell you that God designed you 
to be happy ; that you must look at the bright side of things, and 
not suffer yourself to be overwhelmed by these evils, prove by 
their shallow consolations that they have not solved the mysteries 
of human life. It affords me very little comfort to know that 
the nerves of my body are adapted to give me pleasure, while I 
am racked with neuralgia and tortured with toothache. 

But some will tell you that the ills of life are not half so nu- 
merous as its joys ; that, on the whole, the happiness outweighs 
the misery ; that pain is only incidental ; that pleasure could not 
be appreciated without pain as a foil to set it off ; that blessings 
in order to brighten must sometimes take their flight. It may 
do for the philosopher to account for the existence of sorrow by 
this explanation, but the sufferer himself will not receive it. 

Then, again, they will tell you that suffering is accidental ; that 
in the constitution of the universe the benevolent Creator did not 
intend or expect His children to be afflicted. This is the most 
absurd of all the hypotheses I have noticed. It ascribes to God 
boundless benevolence, but limited intelligence and power. If 
anything can be demonstrated, it is that the sorrows we experience 
are not accidental, but designed by Him whose kingdom ruleth 



260 CONSOLATION. 

over all. That silver cup of Joseph did not fall into the sack ; 
it was put there. 

We need not stop here to inquire into Joseph's motives for 
doing this. Perhaps it was to try the faith, loyalty, and love of 
his brethren for their father. And Jesus puts the sorrow into 
our hearts, to try our faith, loyalty, and love for our Father. 
Let us endeavor to unravel this tangled mystery of pain a little 
further. 

(a) . We know in regard to many forms of pain that its design 
is beneficent. It is sent in order to prevent greater suffering. 
Like the thorns on the rosebush, which prevent our grasping the 
flower too hastily, so pain warns us against the too eager pursuit of 
forbidden pleasures. It would be impossible for us to conceive of 
the excesses into which human nature would plunge, were it not 
for the restraining influence of pain. Suppose that wrong-doin^ 
were not checked by remorse, or that sins against our body wer«3 
not followed by disease in the body, or that crimes iu violation 
of social order were not followed by penalties — why, the whol*? 
world would become a vast pandemonium. It is because the firM 
burned him, that " the burnt child dreads the fire." The paiii , 
therefore, was beneficent in its effect on him. The retribution^ 
of nature in the production of sorrow are salutary lessons to thos»^ 
who heed them. 

(b) . Human suffering gives occasion to those who look on it, 
for the exercise of virtues that otherwise would be impossible. 
How could you find occasion for the grace of benevolence, if 
there were no widows, and orphans, and destitute ? or of sym- 
pathy, if there were no bereaved ? or of tenderness and gentle- 
ness, if there were no " sick and in prison " to whom you might 
minister ? Son, daughter of affliction, be of good cheer. Not 
for ourselves are we always smitten. By the blow upon you, 
God may be doing more unto others than you can ask or think. 

{c). But this of itself would be a poor apology for suffering, if 
the lesson were taught only for the benefit of the spectator. We 
shrink with instinctive horror from the cruelty of the ancient 
sculptor who gloated over the dying agonies of a tortured crim- 
inal, because they afforded him a lesson in depicting the contor- 



CONSOLATION. 



261 



tions produced by mortal pain. This may have been a valuable 
contribution to art, and a spectacle quite improving to the skill 
of the artist, — ^but how about the poor malefactor ? Here is the 
explanation : " The suffering that tends to beautify another life 
with graces, tends also to bless the sufferer with piety." "What 
occasion would he ever have for resignation, submission, faith in 
God, if God never crossed his will, nor smote him with His rod, 
nor plunged him into the depths of dark, inscrutable providences? 

{d). All this, however, does not serve to explain satisfactorily 
the mystery of human sorrow. It shocks our sense of justice to 
admit for a moment that the beneficent and loving Father inflicts 
suffering upon His creatures for the sake of attaining such ends. 
If they are indeed the results of sorrow, they must be regarded 
as incidental and subsidiary ; and not as the final cause. The 
real formal cause of all sorrow is sin. It would be wrong to in- 
flict suffering on an innocent being. 

'No human authority would do this, even for the man's own 
good. And God does not do it. He does not send pain and 
death to any innocent human being. 

The pangs of infancy are no exception to this universal propo- 
sition ; for although young infants are sinless, they are not guilt- 
less. They have a corrupt nature ; and, on account of the sin of 
our flrst parents imputed to them, share a heritage of pain. The 
sufferings of the Holy Son of God constitute no exception to the 
proposition. For, while He was personally without sin, He was 
accounted, by the imputation of our sins to Him, the most guilty 
being in the universe. " He who knew no sin was made sin for 
us." 

Only upon this ground can God be justified in the infliction of 
those untold agonies upon His well-beloved Son. Here, then, in 
human sin, we have, in general, the only satisfactory explanation 
of human sorrow. 

II. Why does God smite us in the most sensitive part ? Why 
did Joseph put the cup in Benjamin's sack ? If it had been 
Simeon's or Judah's, it would not have been so hard to bear. 
But Benjamin ! Leave him in Egypt ! Go home without him, 



262 



CONSOLATION. 



and bring down the gray hairs of our father in sorrow to the 
grave ! Did we not tell the man, " The lad cannot leave his 
father, for if he should leave his father, his father would die " ? 
And now, that which we most feared has come upon us. Benja- 
min, in whom our father's life is bound up, Benjamin must be 
left a prisoner in Egypt ! 

Just so, many of you have often felt ; and you have moaned 
under the smiting of God's hand. " Take everything else— my 
houses, my lands, my friends, my other children, but oh! my 
Benjamin ! I cannot live without him. Why was the cup put 
into the sack of my Benjamin ? " I answer, just heeame it is 
Benjamin^ s. Sorrow is the medicine with which God cures the 
spiritual maladies of His children. If the cup had been put into 
some other sack, you would not have felt the pain which is de- 
signed to do you good. God rarely gives sugar-coated pills. 
The medicine He administers is usually bitter. 

The confession which Judah made, " God hath found out the 
iniquity of thy servants," and his previous distress, show that 
these troubles came upon them in order that their sin in selling 
Joseph might be brought to their remembrance. This is always 
the effect of afflictions. 

You have committed some great sin, and for a long time it 
troubled you ; but gradually, the remembrance of it faded out of 
your mind. And you have never gone with it to God to confess 
it, and obtain the assurance of forgiveness. Suddenly you dis- 
cover that God has a controversy with you. God brings your 
sin to remembrance by one stroke of His providence ; and then 
you are brought to repentance. 

Or again, you have been uniformly prosperous ; you have all 
that heart can wish ; and you love the world and the things of 
the world. You have forsaken the fountain of living waters, and 
sought to slake your thirst at other streams. God dries them up 
in order to bring you back to Himself. Or you have set up some 
one object of idolatrous worship. God dashes it from its pedestal, 
that your heart may be wholly set on Him. Or you have been 
trying to serve two masters ; you have been living partly for 
earth and partly for Heaven ; and this divided allegiance has 



CONSOLATION. 



263 



been the occasion of your present grief. Begin to live wholly 
for Christ. 

There is still another aspect in which we are to look at this 
matter. It is very certain that notwithstanding the keen sorrow 
which Joseph inflicted on his brethren by the stratagem he de- 
vised, his heart was yearning toward them with an inextinguish- 
able love. His purpose at the time, although concealed from 
them, was to bring them all into Egypt and save them from the 
thick-crowding calamities which threatened them in Canaan. 
When Jacob cried out, "All these things are against me," and 
when in their profound consternation at the circumstantial evi- 
dence which convicted them of robbery, they rent then- clothes, 
he did not dream, tl ey did not know, that all their apparent ills 
were really straightforward steps to a career of prosperity and 
honor. 

Thus, thus it is with us. In aU His dealings with us, 

God moves in a mysterious way 
Hjs wonders to perform." 

Though we cannot comprehend how it is, yet He assures us that 
" aU things work together for good to them that love God, to 
them who are the called according to His purpose." It is with 
this precious panacea for all the woes of life that God equips all 
His ministers when He says to them, " Comfort ye, comfort ye 
my people." " How am I dumb in the presence of the wailings 
and complaints of the broken-hearted without this ! How can I 
face this David, as he comes wringing his hands and crying in 
his agony, ' Oh ! Absalom ! my son, my son \ Would God I 
had died for thee.' What can I say to this poor Eachel, weeping 
for her children and refusing to be comforted, unless I may say 
to them : ' This affliction cometh not by chance — it comes as the 
outworking of His adorable purpose who worketh all things to- 
gether for good to them that love Him 1 ' " 

Again, it is evident from the sequel, that it was Joseph's plan 
to recall his brethren in order to make himself known to them. 
He might have adopted some other method. But he did not 
choose to do it. So Jesus wants us to become acquainted with 



264 



CONSOLATION. 



Him, and it is His plan to bring this to pass through the medium 
of sorrow. We are so busy in our chase after the butterflies of 
the world, that He maims us, so that we may stop in our hurried 
pursuit of them, and sit down awhile and talk with Him. Many 
a man has never seen the Son of God, till he finds Him walking 
by his side in the furnace of affliction. 

Lastly. Joseph longed to gather his loved ones around him, 
that they might share his good fortune and see his honor. And 
so Jesus wants to fill heaven with His friends. " Father, I will 
that they also, whom Thou hast given me, be with me where I 
am ; that they may behold my glory." Oh ! is it not enough to 
console us amid all the sorrows of our troubled Kfe to know, that 
the whole course of our discipline here is intended to prepare us 
for the full enjoyment of the society of Jesus there ? To know 
that He will never see of the travail of His soul and be fully 
satisfied until He shall gather all His redeemed ones around Him 
in heaven ? K " the Captain of our Salvation was made perfect 
through sufferings," and " for the joy that was set before Him, 
endm-ed the cross, despising the shame," surely we can cheerfully 
submit to the conditions of our future elevation to a place by His 
side, knowing that " if we suffer with Him, we shall also reign 
with Him." * 



* This was the last sermon Mr. Pratt ever preached. 



xxin. 



EESUEEECTIOIT. 

" The Power of His Resurrection." — Phil. iii. 10 

" The resurrection of Christ is the most important and the best 
authenticated fact in the history of the world." Paul says that he 
counted all things but loss, and suffered the loss of all things, that 
he might know the " power of Christ's resurrection." 

What is this " power of His resurrection " that is an object of 
such intense and eager curiosity ? The Apostle does not mean 
by this expression, the power by means of which Christ's resur- 
rection was effected ; that we know was the mighty power of 
God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. But he has reference to 
the resurrection itself as a som-ce of power. He means the force 
which the resurrection exerts since it occurred. 

IS'ow one mode of attaining a conception of the power of any 
force, either moral or physical, is to picture what would have 
been the state of the sphere in which it has operated, if that force 
had never existed. For example, in order to gain an idea of the 
power of the sun, we imagine what would be the condition of 
this earth if the sun had never shone, or should cease to shine. 

In like manner we may form some conception of the " power 
of His resurrection " if we consider what would have been the 
condition of the world if Christ had remained in the tomb of 
Joseph and never risen in His body from the grave. 

Ji Christ had not risen from the dead, the Gospel would have 
been proved false ; the whole of His hfe, all His miracles, all His 
doctrines, all His promises, all His threatenings would have been 
a palpable and notorious imposture and delnsion. All the proph- 
ecies, all the Psalms, all the Old Testament types and symbols 
and sacrifices would have been proved to be a tissue of cunningly 

(265) 



266 



BESURRECTION. 



devised fables ; His claim to being the Divine Son of God would 
have been exploded as a falsehood ; " the whole scheme of redemp- 
tion would have been a failure ; and all the predictions and antic- 
ipations of its glorious results in time and in eternity, for men 
and for angels of every rank and order, would have been proved 
to be chimeras." It is almost impossible to conceive of all the 
consequences which would have followed His failure to rise from 
the dead. There could have been no Christian Church ; for its 
existence is based upon the continued life of an incarnate Saviour : 
there could have been no Bible ; for the whole Old Testament 
would have been demonstrably false : and the ITew Testament 
would never have been written. Men would live and die without 
hope ; for they would have no Saviour. The hopes which a liv- 
ing Jesus had kindled in the bosoms of those who looked for a 
Messiah would have been extinguished in the tomb of a dead 
Jesus, who had not the strength to burst the prison bars of His 
grave. Universal skepticism must have engulphed the universal 
mind of the race. All that had been received as true for ages 
would have been proved a fable ; for the whole revelation of 
God, from Moses to John the Baptist, pointed to Jesus as Him 
who was to save mankind by His death mid resurrection ; and if 
His resurrection failed. His death was the death of a man, and 
not of a great God and Saviour. His life of beneficence and 
holiness. His death of agony and shame, so far as we are con- 
cerned, would have no more significance and value than the life 
and death of Socrates, unless they were followed by His triumph 
over death, to prove that a greater than Socrates had been cruci- 
fied. This resurrection of Christ was thus the keystone in the 
arch of the plan of Redemption. Had it been a-wanting, the 
whole structure must have tumbled into a heap of shapeless and 
unreconstructihle ruins.* 

" St. Paul, writing to a Gentile Church, expressly makes Chris- 
tianity answer with its life for the literal truth of the Resurrec- 
tion : ' If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and 
your faith is also vain. Then they also which are fallen asleep in 



Hodge. 



RESURRECTION. 



267 



Christ are perished.' Our Lord's honor and credit were staked 
upon the issue, since He had foretold His resurrection as the sign 
which would justify all the claims He had set up during His hfe." 
For the Scribes and Pharisees had said, We would see a sign from 
Thee, and He said that He would give them no other sign than 
this : "As Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's 
belly, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in 
the heart of the earth." The stupendous truth that Jesus, after 
predicting that He would be put to a violent death and then rise 
from the dead, did actually so rise, forces every man to accept 
the whole of Christianity as true. The Eesurrection has all the 
force of an a fortiori argument. The proof of this as a historical 
fact, of necessity demonstrates the truth of the whole Gospel his- 
tory. And it is because its proof is essential to the establishment 
of Christianity that God, in His providence, has so authenticated 
it that the man who doubts it is a fool or worse than a fool. If, 
then, Christ did rise from the dead. He is the Son of God, equal 
with the Father, ''God manifest in the flesh. 

Having thus seen the power of His resurrection by glancing 
at what would have been the condition of the world without it, let 
ns look more directly at the effects which the Scriptures ascribe 
to it. 

I. The power of the resurrection in quickening our souls 
is asserted by Paul in the 2d chap, of Ephesians, ver. 5 : " JEven 
when we were dead in sins^ God hath quicTcened us together icith 
ChristP This does not refer simply to the impartation to us of 
spiritual life ; this was given to us by the Holy Spirit in regen- 
eration. Spiritual life was received by believers long before 
Christ came in the flesh, and hence before His resurrection. 
The quickening, therefore, to which the Apostle refers, is some- 
thing different from this. He does not mean that our souls are 
quickened as His body was : — that there is an analogy between 
His resurrection from the grave and our spiritual resurrection ; 
but the truth here taught is the same as that taught in such pass- 
ages as these : Eom. vi. 6, 8, " Our old moM is crucified icith 
Him : Nov^ if v:e he deaxl with Christ, we helieve that we shall 



268 



RESURRECTION. 



also live with Him^'^] Gal. ii. 20, "/ am crucified with Christ: 
nevertheless I live^ yet not /, hut Christ liveth in me^''\ 2 Cor. 
V. 14, '-^ If one died for all, then all died^''; 1 Cor. xv. 22, ''For 
as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all he made alive 
i. e., " that in virtue of the union, covenant and vital, between 
Christ and His people. His death was their death. His resurrec- 
tion their resurrection, and His exaltation theirs. These pass- 
ages all express what has already taken place ; not what is future 
or merely in prospect. The resurrection, the quickening, and 
raising up of Christ's people, were accomplished when He rose 
from the dead and sat down at the right hand of God. The life 
of the whole body is in the head ; am.d, therefore, wlien the head 
rose, the hody roseP * 

II. Another effect of the power of the resurrection is the 
strong assurance it gives all helievers of the resurrection of their 
mortal bodies / "He that raised ujp Christ from the dead shall 
also quicken your mortal hodies hy His 8j>irit that dwelleth 
in you " (Rom. viii. 11). The mystery of our future resurrection 
exceeds our reason ; but it is as clearly revealed, as it is inexpli- 
cable. The Apostle distinctly connects the final resurrection of 
believers with the accomplished resurrection of Christ. As His 
body was raised by the power of the Spirit that dwelt in Him, 
so our bodies shall be raised by the Spirit that dwells in us. 
As His body was sanctified by having been the residence of the 
Holy Spirit and therefore could not be the prey of the grave for- 
ever, so our bodies, being once honored as the temple of the Holy 
Ghost, cannot remain under the dominion of death. And as the 
indwelling of the Holy Spirit in Him secured His rising from the 
dead, so the indwelling of that same Spirit in us secures our 
rising from the dead. And the fact that He did thus rise, is 
the pledge and security to us that we shall rise also. It may be 
because we cannot understand the mystery of the resurrection of 
our mortal bodies that we think so little of it as a source of joy- 
ful expectation. But it is one of the most exhilarating and glo- 



* Hodge on Eph. ii. 5. 



RESURRECTION. 



269 



rious truths revealed in Scripture. If we realized it as we ought, 
we could not, as so many do, regard the cold, damp, dark grave 
with any sense of aversion or repulsion. If we knew the power 
of His resurrection in securing our own, as Paul desired to know 
^ it, then we should long to be conformed to His death, so that we 
might attain to a similar resurrection from the dead. The or- 
dinary comments upon this latter clause of the verse seem to me 
to eviscerate it of all its meaning. I do not believe that it has 
any reference to the fact that Paul was conscious that he was 
exposed to a violent death similar to that of Christ. But it 
means that being dead like Christ and lying in the grave like 
Him, being thus conformed to His death, he would in like man- 
ner attain to a similar glorious resurrection by the same power 
that raised Him up. Bishop Pearson " on the Creed " has ex- 
pressed this idea in the following words : The resurrection of 
Christ is the cause of our resurrection by a double causality, as 
an efficient and as an exemplary cause. As an efficient cause our 
Saviour, by and upon this resurrection, has attained power and 
right to raise all the dead. ' For as in Adam all die, so in Christ 
shall all be made alive.' As an exemplary cause, in regard that 
all the saints of God shall rise after the similitude and in con- 
formity to the resurrection of Christ : For if we have heen plant- 
ed together in the likeness of His death, we shall he also in the 
likeness of His resurrection (Rom. vi. 5)." This then is a second 
power of the resurrection ; that it confirms and proves the resur- 
rection of believers : Christ rising from the dead has obtained the 
power to effect, and is become the pattern of our resurrection. 
We are the members of that body of which Christ is the head ; 
" And if the head be risen, the members cannot be far behind."* 

III. A third power in the resurrection of Christ is that by 
means of it believers are justified. " He was delivered for our 
offences, but was raised again for our justification " (Rom. iv. 
25). This truth is not fully grasped by the Church in general. 
It is more frequently the case that the consciousness of believers 



* Pearson. 



270 



RESURRECTION. 



turns to the death of Christ as effecting their justification. But 
the death of Christ was only a demonstration of the guilt of those 
whom He represented. The work of their justification was only 
begun in His death. Had it been arrested at this point by His 
failure to rise, they 7iever could have heen justified. He wrought 
their justification by His death, but its efficacy depended on His 
resurrection. By His death paid their deht, in His resurrec- 
tion He received their acquittance. He was quickened by the 
Spirit and by this Spirit ^2.^ justified Himself from every charge 
that could be alleged against Him as the party and covenant head 
of those whose iniquities He bore. The resurrection of Jesus is 
therefore something more than a mevQ proof oi our justification. 
It was^ in fact, our justification. It was an integral, essential 
part of the thing itself. His resurrection was the justification of 
Jesus himself as the Head of the Church ; it was the actual dis- 
charge of the prisoner on account of His satisfaction of the debt 
which He had assumed. If Christ had remained under the 
power of death, the curse of the law could not have been re- 
moved from us ; we should have been left to die in our sins. He 
was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justifica- 
tion. " Jesus bowed beneath that death which the law demand- 
ed and which sinks angels and men to everlasting ruin ; and He 
came victorious from the conflict. If He had been a creature, 
He would have been crushed, sunk, lost ; if He had been less 
than God, the bitterness of death could not have been passed ; 
never, never could He have emerged from that thick darkness 
into which He entered when He made His soul an offering for 
sin. The morning of the third day — and a more glorious day 
never dawned upon our earth — forever settled the question 
of our justification. When our great Substitute had given 
up the ghost and ^ descended into hell,' the possibility of His 
return to us depended upon His ability to meet and exhaust 
the infinite wrath of the Infinite God. When the terrific cup 
was administered, and He drank it and died. His slumbers in 
Joseph's tomb could never have been broken, unless He could 
thunder with a voice like God, and bear the burden of infinite 
woe. The third day, which proclaimed His triumph, declared 



RESURRECTION. 



271 



Him .to be the Son of God with power, ' according to the spirit 
of holiness' bj His resurrection from the dead. He had died a 
death which none could die bnt one who was almighty." ^ And 
when He rose from that death in triumph, He arose Justified, 
and drew with Him in His train all His people for whose sins 
He had undertaken the conflict ; and thus He rose for their jus- 
tification. 

lY. In close connection with this thought, I call your atten- 
tion to a fact recorded by Matthew, about which you rarely ever 
hear anything said : first, because few really believe it, and sec- 
ondly, because it is only once mentioned in the ]N"ew Testament. 
But it is a most amazing fact and is strikingly illustrative of 
what may be called th.Q physical power of His resurrection. On 
the first day of the week after Christ's burial, at early dawn, there 
was a great earthquaJce, and the body of Jesus was restored to 
life, and He walked forth from His grave a living man. [N'ow, 
an earthquake is 2ijphysical effect, involving the play of tremen- 
dous physical forces. This earthquake was no mere coincidence ; 
it was actually produced by Jesus rising from the dead. It was 
only one among the many proofs of the power of His resurrec- 
tion." The earth in giving up the dead was convulsed with 
mighty throes, and thus the forces of nature were made to attest 
the power of His resurrection. But this was not all ; He burst 
the prison of the grave not only for Himself, but for many 
others — the graves all around Him were opened, "and many 
bodies of saints which slept, arose and came out of their graves 
after His resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared 
unto many." N'ow, here is a stupendous physical fact : that as 
soon as Christ arose He drew others from the dead and brought 
them with Him into the living world. It proves that the " power 
of Christ's resurrection " " reached down into the domains of the 
dead. Even in the appalling regions of physical corruption He 
overthrew the empire of him who, according to the Scriptures, 
' had the power of death,' and acquired the authority not only to 



^ * ThornweU, II., p. 298. , 



272 



BESURRECTION. 



conduct the souls He had redeemed to the mansions of eternal 
peace, but also to wrest their bodies from the bonds of the curse, 
and present them to His Father in hodily as well as spiritual glori- 
fication." We do not know who were these first trophies of the 
glorious conqueror of the king of terrors. Was Abraham among 
them, to whom it was promised that he should see in a very pe- 
culiar manner the day of the Lord ? Was Moses, of whom Jude 
relates that Satan strove with the heavenly powers, about his 
body ? Was Job, who said, " I know that my Redeemer Hveth, and 
that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth : And though 
after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I 
see God " ? The narrative leaves us without a reply, and is also 
silent as to the appearance presented by the risen saints ; and 
when and where, and in what manner, they were afterward taken 
up into heaven. The mission of those who were thus called from 
the dust of the grave, was limited to one thing : viz., to repre- 
sent the resurrection of Jesus as an event that operated with 
creative physical power, in the past, the present, and the future ; 
and not less in the depth than in the height ; and to give actual 
proof of the exceedingly abundant and well-grounded cause we 
have to glory in t\iQ joower of His resurrection.^^ 

y. The power of His resurrection is exemplified in that it is 
presented by the Apostle as the motive or stimulant to all holy 
living. "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things 
which are above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God ; 
set your affections on things above and not on things on the 
earth." The fact that we are identified with Christ in His res- 
urrection, should fill us with lofty aspirations, and should wean 
us from the love of earth. Here is the Apostle's argument ; 

(1.) Being raised up with Christ, we ought to seek things above. 
Any other search or desire would be very inconsistent. " The 
image is this : — the region of the dead is beneath ; they are let 
down to their final resting-place. Should a man then rise from 
this dark and deep receptacle, and ascend to the living world, 
would he set his desires on the gloom and chill and rottenness 
he had left behind him ? Would he place the objects of his 



RESURRECTION, 



273 



search among the coffins and the mean and creeping things that 
live in putrefaction ? Would he still seek for things below ? At 
the very idea and memory of that locality, would not his spirit 
shudder ? And if Christians have been raised from a yet lower 
condition and by a nobler resurrection, should not similar feel- 
ings and associations rule their minds ? Why should they be gaz- 
ing downward from their position, and groping among things so 
far beneath them ? Their past state with its sin and guilt, its 
degradation and misery, can surely have no attractions for them 
now. And 

(2.) " Christ is dbove^ in a station of glory. Their union 
with Him will lead their thoughts to Him. As He is in 
heaven, holding it in their name ; as their present life and peace 
originate in union with Him — a union to be realized more vivid- 
ly when He shall bid them ' come up higher,' therefore should 
their desires stretch away upward and inward toward Him, and 
the scene He occupies ' on the right hand of the glorious Majes- 
ty.' The Apostle does not urge any transcendental contempt of 
things below; but simply asks that the heart be not set upon 
them, in the same way and to the same extent in which it is set 
upon things above. The pilgrim is not to despise the comforts he 
may meet with by the way ; but he is not to tarry among them, 
or to leave them with regret. Things on earth are only subordi- 
nate and instrumental ; things above are supreme and final. At- 
tachment to things on earth is unworthy of one who has risen 
with Christ ; for they are beneath him, and the love of them is 
not in harmony with his position and prospects. What can 
wealth achieve for him whose treasure is in heaven ? or honor, 
for him who is already enthroned in heavenly places ? or pleas- 
ure, for him who revels in ' newness of life' ? or power, for him 
who is endowed with a moral omnipotence ? or fame, for him 
who enjoys the approval of God ? " * 

Thus the power of His resurrection is displayed in weaning 
the heart of the Church, which is His bride, from the world, 
from which she has been divorced ; and in raising her affections 
to heaven, her destined home. 



* Eadie on Col. iii. 1, 2. 



274 



RESURRECTION. 



YI. The power of His resurrection is evinced in the fact that 
by means of it believers are made to " walk in newness of lifeP 
I wish to call your attention specially to this doctrine — All holy 
limng flows from the life of Christ. "To live in sin," and "to 
walk in newness of life," are two opposite characteristics of two 
different conditions. While a man is still alive to sin, i. e., un- 
der its guilt and condemnation, he goes on living in sin, and he 
cannot help it ; he must of necessity sin and keep sinning, for 
that condition has no life to produce a walk according to God's 
mind. But when such a man has become incorporated into Him 
who bore his sin, he is, just because his judgment has been borne^ 
and by virtue of his union with Jesus risen and living forever, a 
partaker of Christ's hfe ; and tliis is " newness of life." When 
the Apostle speaks of this newness of life as connected with the 
resurrection of Christ, he simply declares that they who died in 
Christ have become righteously and really living in Him, in 
whose death they died, and this is a new life to them. Being 
then made partakers of life in Christ, who was raised from the 
dead, they are called to walk "in newness of life." The con- 
clusion is obvious : that whatever deliverance from the power of 
sin, or whatever attainment may be made in holiness, these are 
the outgoings and manifestations of the life of our risen and ex. 
alted Lord. " The holy walk of the believer, in this world, is not 
the result of his death to the power of sin, nor is it the result of 
the evil principle being dead in him, but it is the fruit of a life 
which has been given him in Christ Jesus, as the reward of his 
obedience unto death. And the truth of this, — our death to the 
guilt of sin in His death, and our life unto God in His life, is ever 
more offered to the faith of living saints as the directing motive 
of their life." This is what the Apostle means when he says, 
" Therefore, we," i. e.^ all behevers without exception, (not one 
class of believers who have made high attainments in piety, as 
distinguished from some who have not yet "got the blessing" 
from a want of " unreserved consecration " — we, any of you and 
all of you), " are buried with Him by baptism^ into death, that like 

* " Buried with Him by baptism" has no reference to immersion, as Bap- 
tists teach. 



RESUEBECTION. 



275 



as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, 
even so we also should walk in newness of life" (Eom. vi. 4). 
This, then, is another power of His resurrection, that it actually 
imparts to all believers a 7ieiD spiritual life. 

YII. I have dwelt so long on the power of His resurrection in 
believers as individuals, that I have left time for only one remark 
as to the ''power of His resurrection " as manifested in the course 
of human history. If you will read the Acts of the Apostles care- 
fully, you will see that the chief element in their preaching was 
their personal testimony to the resurrection of Jesus. You will 
see that Matthias was chosen in the place of Judas, to be with the 
rest a witness to the resurrection of Jesus. This was an essential 
quahfication of an Apostle. And in order that Saul of Tarsus 
might be thus qualified to be an Apostle, it was necessary to 
bring him to a personal interview with the risen and ascended 
Saviom- ; so that he might be able to say he had seen " the risen 
Lord. Xow, as I said in the beginning, that the resurrection of 
Christ was the key-stone in the arch of the plan of redemption, 
so now I say, from another point of view, that it is the founda- 
tion on which the Church is built. Hence all the victories of 
Christianity in the world are the direct result of the ])ov:er of His 
resurrection. The Christian Church is the colossal structure 
reared upon this foundation, deep as the granite basis of the 
world. " If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain and 
your faith is vain." But preaching has not been vain ; faith has 
not been vain. The preaching of this risen Christ has revolution- 
ized human history ; it has brought a new power into social, do- 
mestic, and political life. Of the two doctrines, the Crucifixion 
and the Resurrection, — the one inspired among all men indig- 
nant horror, the other unbounded scorn. Consider what these 
doctrines have overcome : First, " Judaism with its long and 
splendid history, rolling back from the heroic struggles of the 
Asmonean princes to the magnificence of Solomon ; nay, back- 
ward to the day, when, with uphfted spear, Joshua had bidden 
the sun to stand still on Gibeon ; and Abraham, obeying the 
mysterious summons, had abandoned the gods of his fathers in 



276 



RESURRECTION. 



Ur of the Chaldees. The rod of Moses, the harp of David, the 
ephod of Samuel, the mantle of Elijah, the graven gems on 
Aaron's breast, the granite tables of Sinai, the hving oracles of 
God — all these were the inheritance of Judah ; and who was this 
crucified Xazarene about whom some miserable Galileans testi- 
fied that He had risen from the dead, that He should dare to as- 
sail an immemorial faith like this ! But still, Judaism survived 
His resurrection for only forty years. The blood of the King 
whom they had crucified, fell like a rain of fire from heaven upon 
them and their children." 

Secondly, they encountered Paganism^ with its mercenary 
priests, its proud philosophy, its favorite vices, its tyrannous 
politics, and its abominable and debauched social life. Yet, un- 
aided by anything external, the doctrine of a risen Jesus won. 
" Without one earthly weapon, Christianity faced the legionary 
masses, and tearing down their adored eagles replaced them by 
the sacred monogram of her victorious Idbarum / made the cross, 
the instrument of a slave's agony, more glorious than the laticlave 
of consuls or the diadem of kings "; without eloquence, silenced 
the subtle dialectics of the Academy ; and without knowledge, the 
encyclopaedic ambition of the Porch. And when, after essaying 
argument, and rhetoric, and railing, and irony, and invective in 
vain. Paganism resorted to brute fo^fce and crushing violence, even 
then Julian, the last of the persecuting pagan emperors, died prema- 
turely in the wreck of his broken powers with the despairing 
words upon his pallid lips, as he flung toward heaven a handful 
of his clotted blood, " Yicisti Galiloee,^^ " O Galilsean, thou hast 
conquered ! " Then after triumphing over external foes the doc- 
trine of a Divine Eisen Redeemer encountered foes in its own 
household, and the Arian apostasy threatened the very existence 
of the Church, while Athanasius seemed to " stand alone against 
the world." But there were thousands of the true people of God 
who constituted the church that had not bowed to Baal, and 
mouths that had not kissed him ; and the great heart of the 
Christian multitude remained sound. 

Then came the avalanche of the northern barbarian invasion ; 
and it seemed to the eye of man as if the church must perish. 



EESURRECTION. 



277 



But in th.e language of Gibbon, " The progress of Christianity 
was marked not only by a decisive victory over the learned and 
luxurious civilization of the Eoman empire, but over the warlike 
barbarians of Scythia and Germany, who first subverted the em- 
pire and then embraced the rehgion of the vanquished." 

Then in the seventh century came Mohammedanism, with its 
trooping beauties and heaven of lust ; then Atheism in the fif- 
teenth century, when Christendom had ceased to be Christian, 
and priests, turned atheists, made open scolf of the religion they 
professed ; when a Cardinal Bembo could speak of Christ as 

Minerva sprung from the head of Jupiter and Pope John 
jested with his secretary on the " profitableness of the fable of 
Christ." All seemed lost and dead, when the voice of Luther's 
indignation shook the world. The hierarchy fell ; but the power 
of His resurrection, by which we are justified, saved the Church. 

And so I might go on, did time permit, and show you how 
down to this very moment the energy of Christ's resurrection 
has been reforming apostate civilizations ; and when it did not 
reform, has been purging out pestilence from the reeking atmos- 
phere with fire and storm. Other religions have withered into 
dishonored decrepitude ; but Christianity, with continuous reju- 
venescence, has renewed her strength like the eagle, has run and 
not been weary, has walked and not been faint. If ever, through 
her own faithlessness, she has fallen before her enemies, she has 
risen, Antaeus-like, with new vigor, and " shaken her invincible 
locks." She cannot die, because, by the power of His resurrec- 
tion, she is endued with the " power of an endless life." 

The power of His resurrection has left its imprint upon the 
very calendars of all Christianized nations. As His birthday was 
the beginning of a new era, so that in every letter you write, in 
every legal document you pen, in every legislative enactment 
that is engrossed, in every historical event that is recorded, even 
infidels are compelled to acknowledge the " year of our Lord ": 
so at the beginning of every week all Christendom recognizes 
the " power of His resurrection," in observing as sacred the day 
when He entered into His rest and ceased from His labors, as 



278 RESURRECTION. 

God did after the first creation. When busy commerce in all 
om* crowded marts folds her arms, and the din of trade is hushed 
in the still Sunday morning ; when church-bells ring out their 
gladsome tones in honor of the day ; when even law refuses to 
enforce contracts made in violation of the sanctity of this dies 
non, how can we doubt the power of His resurrection ? Yes ! 
the Christian Sabbath, with all that this involves, observed by 
300,000,000 of the human race, attests the " power of His resur- 
rection." 

* Christ the Lord is risen to-day,' 
Sons of men and angels say ; 
Raise your joys and triumphs high, 
Sing, ye heavens, and, earth, reply. 

*' Vain the stone, the watch, the seal; 
Christ has burst the gates of hell; 
Death, in vain, forbids Him rise, 
Christ hath opened Paradise. 

" Hail the Lord of earth and heaven! 
Praise to Thee by both be given ! 
Thee we greet triumphant now I 
Hail the Resurrection Thou." 



XXIV. 

HEAYEK 

"In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would 
have told you. I go to prepare a place for you." — John xiv. 2. 

If we were informed by a competent authority that a large 
part of our present life on earth is to be spent in another coun- 
try, different in every respect from the land of our birth, where 
greater happiness than we ever experienced would fall to our lot, 
where the society with which we should associate would be more 
agreeable and congenial, the employments in which we should 
engage more interesting and exciting, the range of our thought 
more extended, and the objects of desire and affection more ele- 
vated and exalted, — we should certainly be most deeply inter- 
ested in learning beforehand all that might be known in regard 
to that untried country of which we were to become the deni- 
zens. How eagerly would we read every book which could give 
us any information respecting it ! How anxiously would we in- 
terrogate every pilgrim returning from that distant shore ! How 
carefully would we treasure up in our memories every piece of 
intelligence which might reach us in regard to the climate, the 
society, the politics, the laws, the government, the religion, the 
fashions, the customs of our future home ! 

Now, what I have presented in the form of a mere supposi- 
tion is in reality a sober fact. We are informed by a competent 
authority, that each one of us who is a Christian, will, after a 
longer or a shorter period, be immediately transported to another 
and a better country than that which we now inhabit, where our 
condition, character, associations, and employments will be ma- 
terially modified and changed. We are informed that the place 
to which we are thus destined is called Heaven, And it is not 

(279) 



280 



HEAVEN. 



strange that we should be anxious to know all that may be known 
about this, which is to be our future eternal abode. 

While we speak of heaven as if it were a place of which we 
know everything, is it not true that many of us have very vague, 
shadowy, dim, unsatisfactory conceptions of the state of the 
blessed dead and of the place where they are to spend their 
eternity ? Perhaps this incertitude is unavoidable and pertains 
of necessity to our present imperfect intellectual development. 
All the knowledge we can have of heaven must come to us 
through a written revelation. But a revelation can be made to 
us only in words; and human language is a very imperfect me- 
dium for the conveyance of conceptions which have no pattern 
on earth with which we can compare them. Another reason 
for the vagueness of our notions respecting heaven is that the 
Scriptures nowhere undertake to give us a description of it, except 
in the highly figurative language of the Revelation of St. John, 
which no one understands, and which it is probable it was not 
meant that we should understand. While these figurative de- 
scriptions are unintelligible, they are not on that account to be 
neglected or despised, for they convey to us some general idea of 
the splendor, the beauty, and the bliss of the Kew Jerusalem. 

Now, while all this is true, it is clear that God has not left us 
entirely in the dark with respect to the place and state of the 
soul after death. He has revealed so much as is necessary to ex- 
cite our desires to reach that heavenly abode, and to stimulate us 
to that patient continuance in well-doing by which we shall reach 
glory and lionor and immortality beyond the grave. 

Let us endeavor to gather together the scattered rays of light 
and bring them into one focus. 

I. The Scriptures clearly teach that heaven is a jplace y %, e.^ 
that somewhere in the universe there is a central spot, where are 
congregated together holy angels and the spirits of just men 
made perfect. " We sometimes hear and read such statements 
as this : Heaven is a state as well as a jplace. Such propositions 
have no meaning." * They are words which are not intended to 



* See Harbaugh on Heaven. 



HEAVEN. 



281 



convey thought, but are used simply to conceal the absence 
of all thought. I do not know what is meant by saying Heaven 
is a state. To my mind, it is equivalent to a negation of thought. 
'Now, let us look at the proofs from Scripture that heaven is a 
place. 

(1.) In the text, our Lord says, " I go to prepare a place for 
you." This language is not figurative ; the word I go implies an 
actual departure from one place to another. If the point from 
which He departed was a place, the point toward which He went 
must be a place also. So, too, the word place " is used in its 
literal sense. It is the ordinary Greek word for a locality, used 
constantly to designate a precise spot or situation. From this 
passage alone, then, we are warranted in concluding that heaven 
is a place. 

(2.) But again, that heaven is a place, is proved by the re- 
vealed truth that the todies of Enoch, of Elijah and of our 
Lord are in heaven. J^ow, a body is a substance which has rela- 
tions to place. It is bounded by limits ; it is here, and not there. 
It has spatial relations. As the bodies of Enoch and Ehjah did 
not experience death, they were not chemically decomposed. 
They did not see corruption. The particles which composed 
those bodies were never separated from each other ; the flesh and 
bones and muscles and nerves must have retained their organic 
connection with each other, and do retain them to this very day 
and hour. 

The statement in Genesis with regard to the translation of 
Enoch is not decisive — there it is simply said that Enoch walked 
with God and was not, for God took him ; the same form of ex- 
pression is applied to those who died — that they were not. Eut 
St. Paul relieves us of all doubt by the distinct assertion that on 
account of his faith Enoch was translated that he should not see 
death and was not found, because God had translated him ; i. e., 
his actual physical body was removed from this earth and carried 
away ; and if it was carried away it must have been carried to 
some place, and that place must be heaven. The narrative of 
the translation of Elijah is succinct and clear. Standing with 
Ehsha on the bank of the river Jordan, and in view of fiity young 



282 



HEAVEN. 



men who composed the school of the prophets, he is visibly 
placed by angels in a fiery chariot drawn by horses of fire and 
forcibly separated from his companions and in a whirlwind car- 
ried up to heaven. He wore a mantle / that mantle was com- 
posed of woolen or silken fibres — it was matter^ and Elijah's 
body was matter^ consisting of flesh and bones and blood. The 
mantle which he wore was thrown out of the chariot and fell 
upon Elisha, symbolically to denote that he inherited from his 
master the prophetic spirit, and also because no doubt this fabric 
of wool or silk could not be carried up to heaven. Now, the 
mantle came back to the earth and was taken up and worn by 
Elisha; but the flesh and bones and blood of the translated 
prophet went with his soul into heaven. The young prophets 
asked permission to hunt for the body of Elijah. EHsha, who 
knew that the body of Elijah was taken away from the earth, 
discouraged the search, but after being importuned by them con- 
sented to it, and after an unavailing search of three days, in his 
case as in Enoch's, Elijah was not found : because God had trans- 
lated him^ i. e., his hody to heaven. 

TvTow the body of Elijah was a substance, having relations to 
space 2ind place / it was not annihilated ; it was not decomposed ; 
it underwent no corruption ; in its physical entireness it was 
snatched away/r(9m this earth and borne to some other place 
through the air. It was seen 926 years afterward by Peter, 
James, and John, in company with Moses, on the Mount of 
Transfiguration, in familiar conversation with our Lord. It went 
and it came back ; and it must have gone somewhere and come 
from somewhere — ^that somewhere must have been a place, and 
that place was heaven. 

(3.) Again, it is a matter of history that our Lord died and was 
buried and rose from the dead in His own proper body. He in 
this body appeared to two of His disciples, sat at meat with them 
in this body, broke bread and gave it to them and suddenly van- 
ished out of their sight. Astonished at His presence and still 
more at His sudden exit, they came in haste to Jerusalem, and 
finding the other disciples gathered together, told them of their 
interview with Him, and while they were yet speaking, Jesus 



HEAVEN. 



283 



stood in the midst of them and said, "Peace be unto you." 
They were terrified, supposing that they had seen a spirit. He 
distinctly disclaimed being a spirit, and said, " Behold my hands 
and my feet, that it is I myseK ; handle me and see, for a spirit 
hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." And then, in fur- 
ther attestation of His physical existence. He called for food and 
ate a piece of broiled fish and of an honeycomb. Here were all 
the evidences of a natural body. It could be seen, SLudfelt, and 
handled ; it took food and ate it and satisfied its hunger. On a 
similar occasion, Thomas, who had been informed by the other 
disciples that they had seen the risen Lord, said, " Except I shall 
see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the 
print of the nails, and thrust my hands into His side, I will not 
believe." Eight days after this, Jesus came in His body through 
closed doors, and invited Thomas to reach forth his finger and 
reach forth his hand and thrust it into His wounded side, L e., to 
prove to his sense of touch the material existence of the risen 
body of his Lord, ^^ow, after a period of something more than 
a month, this same visible, tangible person, standing with His 
eleven apostles upon Mount Olivet, is taken up into heaven, and 
a cloud receives Him out of their sight. And while the wonder- 
ing disciples stand gazing up after Him in mute astonishment, 
two men stand by them dressed in white apparel, and assure 
them that " this same Jesus shall so come in like manner as ye 
have seen Him go into heaven." Here then, again, was a body 
that had flesh and bones, and that had recently eaten food, that 
was visibly snatched from this earth and carried away to a place 
somewhere beyond the clouds ; and at the instant of its departure 
angels inform those who behold the prodigy that it has gone to 
heaven and will remain there a human body for ages, and will 
return one day to this earth in like manner as it went. And that 
human, visible, material body is now somewhere in the universe, 
and although the wisest of us know not where it is, yet we are 
bound to believe, in view of all these concurring testimonies, that 
it is a place, and that where He is, there is heaven. Let no 
sophistry of philosophy, let no jugglery of metaphysics cheat you 
out of the well-founded behef that heaven is a place prepared 



284 



HEAVEN. 



for you, and that there are many mansions in the Father's house. 
We may not go farther in our deductions from the known to the 
unknown, nor inquire how visible and tangible bodies subsist in 
this abode. The Apostle tells us that there is a natural body and 
that there is a spiritual hody — a natural body, i. a body adapted 
to the principle of animal life ; a spiritual body, i. e.y a body 
adapted to the principle of spiritual life, and not as the words 
interpreted according to the letter would mean, i7?imaterial mat- 
ter. A natural body consists of flesh and blood, is susceptible of 
pain and decay, and needs air, food, and rest ; it is an animal 
body adapted to the conditions of an earthly existence. What a 
spiritual body is, we know only from Paul's description and from 
the manifestation of Christ to His disciples after His resurrection 
in His glorified body. But spiritual does not mean ethereal, re- 
fined, or 7nade of spirit, which would be a contradiction ; but a 
body adapted to the principle of spiritual life as distinguished 
from animal life. The Apostle teaches us that flesh and blood 
cannot inherit the kingdom of God ; and although at the resur- 
rection those will be there who will join the Lord, at His second 
coming, who, being alive at that time, shall not sleep, that is, die ; 
yet they, too, shall be " changed^^ i. e., their animal bodies will 
become spiritual bodies. Now the point of all this is to suggest 
the idea that as the spiritual body is a body adapted to the spirit- 
ual life, so heaven is a place, but not a place in the gross sense of 
being a material abode, but a spiritual place adapted to the resi- 
dence therein of the glorified and spiritual bodies of Enoch and 
Elijah and Christ. Now into this place we are to be introduced 
as disembodied spirits immediately upon our release from our 
mortal bodies. This is the paradise of God in which the dying 
thief met the spirit of Christ immediately after the crucifixion. 
Into this paradise Paul was introduced, whether in the body or 
out of the body he knew not, and there saw sights and heard 
words which it was not lawful for him to utter. In this great 
house of God not made with hands there are many mansions, 
and Christ went thither to prepare a place for aU them that love 
Him. 



HEAVEN. 



285 



n. I come now to the inquiry, who are the inhabitants of this 
Paradise of God ? I answer first of all, it is the place where 
Jesus — the man Cln-ist Jesus in His glorified resurrection body — 
the same body which His disciples saw and handled, dwells. 
Secondly, it is the abode of all the angels who worship around 
the throne of God. Thirdly, it is the abode of Enoch and Elijah 
in their glorified and spiritual bodies. Fourthly, it is the abode 
of the spirits of just men made perfect. H speculation were 
allowable in this connection, we might add a fifth class of intelH- 
gent beings composed of the inhabitants of other worlds than 
ours, who may be presumed to have been translated from their 
starry homes to compose a part of the shining retinue of the 
King of Glory. 

But we are not to be wise above what is written. We are 
nevertheless entitled to be wise up to what is written. And 
Scripture justifies us in asserting that heaven is the abode of Je- 
sus, of angels, of translated men, and of the spirits of just men 
made perfect. 

The Apostle Paul, in the 12th of Hebrews, in describing the 
glorious privilege of believers, enters into a detailed description 
of the Church on earth and the Church in heaven ; and in speak- 
ing of the latter, he describes it as composed of an innumerable 
company of angels and of the spirits of justified men made per- 
fect. The prophet Daniel, in a vision of the night, saw heaven 
opened, and " thousand thousands and ten thousand times ten 
thousand ministered unto and stood before the Ancient of Days." 

Here imagination shrinks abashed and droops its palsied pin- 
ion when it would attempt to body forth in language a descrip- 
tion of the splendid scene. An innumerable company of created 
spirits, older than time ; mysterious cherubim and burning 
seraphim, principalities and powers, hosts of inferior angels 
ranked in endless files ; and all the armies of the sons of God ; 
the glorious company of the Apostles, the goodly fellowship of 
the prophets, the noble army of martyrs, and among ten thousand 
times ten thousand saints, some whose very names are familiar to 
our ears ; the father and mother of mankind, our primal ances- 
tors; Noah and his children who by faith condemned the 



286 



HEAVEN, 



world; Abraham, the friend of God; Isaac, the child of 
prayer ; the princely Jacob, who prevailed with God ; Joseph 
and the patriarchs ; Moses, the man of God ; Joshua, the son of 
ISTun; Deborah, the warrior prophetess; Samson and Jephtha; 
David, the sweet singer of Israel ; the kingly Hezekiah ; plain- 
tive Jeremiah ; the rapt Ezekiel and Isaiah, whose lips a seraph 
touched with a live coal of fire ; the saintly Daniel " and the 
three who walked unsinged and scatheless through the fiery 
flame " — but the time would fail me to mention the names of 
thousands who we know are there. And last in the enumera- 
tion, but not least in point of interest to each one of us, our own 
blessed dead are there — the little nurslings that smiled for one 
brief hour on their mothers' breasts ; the tender lambs that nes- 
tled by our sides, " the dove whose gentle cooing echoed in our 
hearts," the gentle sister, the brave and gifted and beautiful, — 
all, all our loved and lost ones whose memory dwells in our souls 
like a departed glory, are there ; they are there. 

III. Let us turn to consider the nature and character of these 
inhabitants of the heavenly abode. 

(1.) They are all intelligent beings ; of this there can be no 
doubt. The Scriptures everywhere ascribe lofty intelligence to 
the angels, everywhere investing them with the attributes, ac- 
tions, and emotions of self-conscious beings. They praise God 
continually, they rejoice over repenting sinners. They hearken 
to the voice of God's Word, they talk with each other, they 
are employed by God as the ministers of His providence 
and as the executors of His judgments. So too the Scrip- 
tures everywhere ascribe intelligence to the souls of departed 
saints. All that the Scriptures say on this subject is based upon 
the assumption that the souls of believers at the very instant of 
death enter at once upon a state of quickened intellectual activity. 
There is no such doctrine as that implied in the expression, " the 
sleep of the soul," taught in that which is revealed to us. 

(2.) But if heaven is peopled with intelligent self-conscious 
beings, it follows from the very necessities of the case that they 
must hold intercourse with each other. Man and all intelligent 



HEAVEN. 



287 



beings are constituted to be happy in society. Place a man in 
solitude, and however exciting and felicitous his circumstances in 
other respects, he will wither and pine away. And if heaven is a 
place of perfect bliss, then this element of happiness will not and 
^ cannot be wanting there. With the entire heaven of angels and 
the whole host of the redeemed, we shall have sweet and improv- 
ing fellowship forever. The wise and the good, the great and 
the pure, the benevolent and the active from every region will be 
our companions and associates, with whom we shall live, and 
love, and know, and obey, through one eternally enduring day. 
Of all the afflictions to which we are hable, there is none so pain- 
ful as the death of our friends. And oh, how consoling the doc- 
trine that we shall in the realms above be restored to their fellow- 
ship ! This doctrine is involved in many passages of Scripture ; 
in the account of the last judgment, — in the language of David 
on the occasion of the death of his infant child, — in the parable 
of the rich man and Lazarus, — in the consolation which our Sav- 
iour gives to the penitent thief on the cross, — in the assurance 
administered by Paul to the Thessalonians that they should be 
his joy and crown of rejoicing in the presence of our Lord Jesus 
Christ at His coming and in his forbidding them to sorrow for such 
as had fallen asleep as though they had no hope of being united 
with them and of being together with the Lord, — and in the gen- 
eral use w^hich the sacred writers make of the word sleep for 
death, — a simile which would be flagrantly incorrect, if our recol- 
lections, our friendships and affections were not renewed in a fu- 
ture state. And in general the same doctrine is taught through 
the whole book of the Revelation of St. John. Happy prospect 
that exalts friendship into religion ! What blest society there 
wall be above ! 

(3.) On the question how intercourse shall be conducted in the 
future state, it were easy to speculate or to refer to the specula- 
tions of ingenious and pious minds. These, however, conduct us 
to no certain results. With what rapidity and to what extent 
spirit may communicate with spirit, what new faculties adapted 
to communication it may be the purpose of God to impart, or 
what existing but undeveloped faculties may be brought into 



288 



HEAVEN. 



play in that state of intellectual maturity and perfection — what 
channels of communication accessible to the blessed, and estab- 
lished between the tlirone of Him who is " Head over all things " 
and all parts of that creation which He governs, it is not for us to 
say. "We may believe that a thing is, without knowing how it is. 

(4.) But if there is intercourse between the inhabitants of 
heaven, we may reason farther that it shall be very intimate. 
The society of heaven is called by the Apostle a family — " the 
whole family in heaven.^'' The inhabitants are a family convened 
in the domestic mansion of their Father. This conveys the idea 
of the most endearing intimacy. When do we feel such unre- 
served ease ; when do we unbosom ourselves with such unsus- 
pecting confidence, thinking aloud with one another ; when do 
we experience such an identity of unconfiicting and stirring in- 
terests, drawing forth and mingling all kindred streams of thought 
and feeling, as in our homes ? On earth we can hardly reach 
intimate intercourse with many. We have no time to cultivate 
it, in a state in which " our days are but as an hand-breadth." 
When death so soon divides us, we can enjoy direct intercourse 
only with a few, separated as we are by natural and artificial bar- 
riers, by language, by distance ; and indirect intercourse is never 
very intimate. Among those near us, many will not let us know 
them, keeping always on the reserve, and, as it were, behind the 
curtain ; many are not worth knowing ; and after we think we 
know others well, we find by events which bring out character 
that we have been grievously mistaken. Society on earth is 
formed into an infinite variety of little coteries, or cliques, arising 
from station, wealth, literature, or religious party ; each of these 
has its peculiarities, its usages, its language, its prejudices, its 
intellectual and moral customs ; notwithstanding the expansive 
and combining influence of true religion, these distinctions re- 
main ; and in passing from one party to the other, the individual 
feels as a stranger, receiving and rendering many agreeable civil- 
ities indeed, in the large halls of promiscuous entertainment, but 
excluded from the private and smaller circle of interior and inti- 
mate converse, and departing, in a great measure, unknowing 
and unknown. 



HEAVEN. 



289 



Suppose that at a period remote as the creation, the human 
race had reached the number in which it exists at this moment 
on the globe, and had remained unchanged until the present 
period, and suppose that no obstructions to unrestrained inter- 
course, individual and national, such as have arisen from sin, had 
existed ; suppose that such tendencies, inducements, and facilities 
for communication as a sinless world, accomplished in every im- 
provement, would exhibit, had been continued for 6,000 years, 
who can calculate the degree of acquaintanceship which would 
have existed among men at this day ? Who can conceive the 
intimacy of that intercourse which must already have embraced 
a large proportion of the whole family of man ? I^ow transfer 
these thoughts to the society of that world where all the obstruc- 
tions to intercourse which exist on earth shall vanish — when 
common interests and pursuits shall animate, and the bond of 
love shall bind the whole — when means of intercourse shall be 
multiplied, and when the fellowship of the blessed shall be 
eternal. 

(5.) And this leads me to speak of another element in the state 
of the blessed dead in heaven. 

How evanescent is society on earth ! Pleasant are the endear- 
ments of home — pleasant the interviews of hallowed friendship. 
They come like sunbeams on the soul. But how soon are they 
darkened by the shadow of death ! The sweetness of intercourse 
in this land of affliction and mortality is only the antecedent to 
the bitterness of separation. In heaven we meet, but not to part. 
There are no mournful, tremulous adieus — no empty places of 
friends who once were with us, no vacant chairs at the festal 
board, no lamentation for those who are not, no sohtary survivor 
longing in sadness for his own dismissal. Heaven is the land of 
immortality — no more death, no more sorrow nor crying. The 
society of the blessed shall be, like their existence, eternal. 

TV. What shall be, what are the employments of the inhabit- 
ants of this blessed abode ? 

Some light is thrown on this inquiry by the Scriptures, but it 
must be confessed it is very scanty. All our meditations on and 



290 



HEAVEN. 



descriptions of heaven want balance, and are, so to speak, pic- 
tures ill-composed. It was not ill-said bj a great preaclier, that 
most people's idea of heaven is that it is to sit on a cloud and 
sing psalms. Others again strive to fill this out with the bliss of 
recognizing and holding intercourse with those from whom we 
have been severed on earth. And beyond all doubt such recog- 
nition and intercourse shall be and shall constitute one of the 
most blessed accessories of the heavenly employment ; but it can 
no more be the employment itself than similar intercourse on 
earth was the employment of life itself here. " To read some 
descriptions of heaven one would imagine that it were only an 
endless prolongation of some social meeting, walking and talking 
in some blessed country with those we love." Is it not clear 
that this does not provide the renewed energies and enlarged 
powers of man with food for eternity? 'Nov if we look in 
another direction — that of the absence of sickness and sorrow — 
shall we find any more satisfactory answer to the question. E'ay, 
we shaU find it more difficult, and beset with greater complica- 
tions on this very account. For, think how much of employ- 
ment for our present energies is occasioned by, and finds its very 
field of action in, these anxieties and vicissitudes. They are, so 
to speak, the winds which fill the sails and carry us onward. 
By their action hope and enthusiasm are excited. But suppose 
a state where they are not, and life would become a dead 
calm ; the sail would flap idly and the spirit would cease to 
look onward at all. So that unless we can supply something 
over and above the mere absence of anxiety and pain, we have 
not attained to, nay, we are farther than ever from a suflS- 
cient employment for the life eternal. JSTow, before we seek 
for an answer to the question, let us think a moment thus: 
Can we know, are we able in our present state of the infancy 
of our spirits to know or understand much about the employ- 
ments of heaven? What does the child at play know, what 
can he know of the employments of the man ? Such portions 
of them as are merely external and material, he may take in and 
represent in his sport ; but the work and anxiety of the student 
at his book, or the man of business at his desk — these are of 



HEAVEN. 



291 



necessity hidden from the child, and so it is onward through the 
advancing stages of his life, of each of them it may be said, " We 
know not with what we must serve the Lord until we come 
thither (Ex. x. 26). So that we need not be utterly disappoint- 
ed if our picture of heaven be at present ill-composed ; if it seem 
to be little else than a gorgeous mist after all. We cannot fill in 
the members of the landscape at present. If we could, we should 
he in heaven. For we walk by faith, not by sight. 'Now we 
see through a glass, i. e., in a mirror, darkly ; but then, face to 
face ; now I Jcnow in part, but then shall I Jcnow even as I am 
known. 

Although little is actually conveyed by the words, do they not 
give a glimpse by suggestion of the possible employments of the 
blessed ? This immense accession of light and knowledge must 
of course be interpreted partly of keener and brighter faculties 
wherewith the blessed shall be endowed ; but do not words also 
point to glorious employment of those renewed and augmented 
powers ? How could one endowed with them ever remain idle ? 
What a restless, ardent, many-handed thing is genius here be- 
low. How the highly-endowed spirit searches about and tries its 
wings, now hither, now thither, in the vast realms of intellectual 
life. And if it be so here with the body weighing on us, with. 
the clogs of worldly business and trivial interruptions, what will 
it be there, when everything will be fashioned and arranged for 
this express purpose that every higher employment may find its 
noblest expansion without let or hindrance. What power mind 
shall acquire there, to what a distance the intellectual eye shall 
reach, over what a field and over what a crowd of glorious ob- 
jects it shall range, and with what distinctness its perceptions 
shall be accompanied in that bright region, it is not for us at 
present to conceive. With what accuracy the judgment shall 
act ; with what power and rapidity reason shall conduct its most 
involved and sublime processes, and at what magnificent results 
it shall arrive ; with what stores memory faithful and strong 
shall be enriched, as it shall amass intelligence from all parts of 
the universe and the transactions and discoveries of past dura- 
tion ; amidst what boundless amphtude of varied and glorious 



292 



HEAVEN. 



being, of whole regions of truth yet undiscovered imagination 
shall travel, and what its creations shall then be, and with what 
promptitude and fullness mind shall communicate itself to mind ! 
How consoling and at the same time how exciting and exhila- 
rating is this view of heaven, considered as the scene of perfect 
intellectual strength, activity, acquirement, and communication. 
Eemember that in heaven we are to be " forever with the Lord 
and if we are fit companions for the Lord, we must be like Him 
as He is there, and this alone seems to mark out employment 
sufficient for eternity. For what is, what will the Lord be doing 
in that state of blessedness ? Will He be idle like the gods of 
Epicurus, sitting severe above all and separate from all created 
things ? No, indeed ; no such glorified Lord is revealed to us in 
Holy Scripture. " My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." 
The created universe will be as much beholden to His upholding 
hand as it is now. U we are to be forever with Him, attending 
and guiding His steps, we shall doubtless be fellow-workers with 
Him as we are here. Look abroad on a starry night — and be- 
hold a field of employment for those who shall be ever with the 
Lord. And who can tell what works, not of creation only, but 
of grace also, the blessed may have to search into, works wrought 
on themselves and others, which may there be brought back to 
them by memory entirely restored, and then first studied with 
any power to comprehend and be thankful for them ? 

Then again, the glory of God himself, there first revealed to 
them — the redeeming love of Christ — the glory of the mystery 
of the indwelling of the Spirit, — dry and lofty subjects to the 
sons of men here, — will be to us, when there, as household words 
and as daily pursuits. It seems to me, when we look at all these 
sources of blessed employment, though we are unable from our 
present weakness to follow them out into detail — and when we 
think that perhaps after all we may be omitting some which 
shall then constitute the chief, — it seems to me, I say, as if we 
should not have to complain of insufficient employment for the 
ages of eternity, but rather of an infinite and inexhaustible vari- 
ety for which even endless ages of limited being hardly seem to 
suffice. 



HEAVEN. 



293 



Y. And now consider that t\ns>^laGe of many mansions and of 
such infinite employments is not far from us in reality. The 
nearness of heaven is suggested by the word veil. Our fore- 
runner, Jesus, is said by the Apostle to have retired behind the 
veil. There is then only a veil between us and heaven. "A 
veil is the thinnest and frailest of ail conceivable partitions. It 
is but a fine tissue, a delicate fabric of embroidery. It waves in 
the evening zephyr ; the touch of a child may stir it, and the 
slightest accident may rend it ; the silent action of time will 
moulder it away. The veil that hides heaven from our eyes is 
only our embodied existence, and though fearfully and wonder- 
fully made, it is only wrought out of our frail mortality. So 
slight is it that the puncture of a thorn, the touch of an insect's 
sting, the breath of an infected atmosphere may make it shake 
and fall. In a bound, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, 
in the throb of a pulse, in the flash of a thought, we may start 
into disembodied spirits, glide unabashed into the company of 
great and mighty angels, pass into the light and amazement of 
eternity, know the great secret, gaze upon splendors which flesh 
and blood could not sustain, and which no words lawful for men 
to utter could describe. Brethren, there is but one step between 
you and what lies behind that curtain ; between you and heaven 
there is but a veil." " This day shalt thou be with me in paradise," 
said the dyiug Saviour to the penitent thief. It is not far to 
heaven ; it is not a day's joiu-ney. The angel came all the way 
from heaven in a few minutes to Daniel while he was speaking 
in prayer. The Saviour ascended from Olivet to heaven, and 
was soon out of sight. The djnng saint closes his eyes in death, 
sleeps in Jesus, and opens them in heaven. Sometimes the de- 
parting Christian hears the songs and music of heaven even before 
his immortal spirit stretches its wings for its final flight. How 
far, then, is it to heaven ? You may be already within the sound 
of its happy voices, and but for the " veil of humanity " they 
might even now fall upon the ear. 

YI. Lastly. There is one more thought which I desire to pre- 
sent, although I have already detained you too long. But it is 



294 



HEAVEN. 



one immediately connected with this theme, though not necessa- 
rily growing out of it. It is suggested by what a lovely Christian 
woman once said to me, just before she fell asleep : ^' I do not 
fear death because I have any doubt or misgivings as to my safety 
in Christ, but I shrink from the thought of standing so suddenly 
in the awful presence of the great and glorious and holy One," 
Her idea was that the entrance of the soul into heaven would be 
accompanied by a shock of surprise, and that the intinite sublimi- 
ties of the new and glorious state would overwhehn and well-nigh 
annihilate the soul. Great excitement has sometimes driven rea- 
son from her throne ; and verily, the joy and splendor of that 
moment might seem more than enough to confound the bravest 
and hohest spirit. But no, beloved, it shall not be so. Be com- 
forted ; be assured it shall not be so. There will be no stunning 
shock to your spirit ; there will be no sense of embarrassment ; 
no shame, no fear, no painful awe, no confusion of face, no sink- 
ing of the spirit, no shrinking of the soul — nothing to disturb the 
calm serenity with which the soul shall enter the blessed abode. 
" A troop of angelic beings, unseen, crowd around the bed of the 
dying Christian in the chamber of death, and are ready, with 
outstretched wings, to bear the spirit home to God ; the last 
quiver gasped from the bloodless lip, the last sigh breathed out, 
and swifter than the heams of the morning^ or the flash of the 
lightning, they tower with it to glory." 

" Oh change! oh wondrous change! 
Burst are the prison bars ; 
This moment, there — so low, 
So agonized — and now 
Beyond the stars ! 

Oh change, stupendous change! 

There lies the soulless clod ; 
The sun eternal breaks, 
The new immortal wakes — 

Wakes with his God." 

But He who has protected it from all evil, also shields it when 
disembodied amidst that opulence of celestial glory, so that it 
feels serenely calm and perfectly at ease the moment it crosses 



HEAVEN, 



295 



the threshold of its heavenly home, and is encompassed bj the 
stupendous reahties of an eternal condition. "Wherefore, my 
beloved, " Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid ; 
in my Father's house are many mansions ; if it were not so, I 
would have told you. I go to prepare a place for totj. And 
if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and re- 
ceive you unto myself, that where I am there ye may be also." * 



* " By a happy coincidence Mr. Pratt's ministry closed where it may be 
said to have begun. On the 15th of January, 1888, a few months before his 
death, he stood among his old friends in Tuskaloosa, and amid the tender 
memories of the home of earlier years (the last Sabbath morning he ever 
preached), spoke to them of ' Heaven,' the other and eternal home he was so 
soon to enter." 



PRAYERS. 



A COMPREHENSIVE PRAYER FOR MORNES[G- SERVICE. 

Almighty God, we are glad to be found again in Tliy sanctuary, 
for our feet are weary and our hearts long for rest. We liave "been 
aU tlie week in the cold world, and have sighed over its sinfulness 
and disquietude. And yet v^e see only the outside deformity and 
blemish ; but Thine eye searches the recesses of the corrupt heart. 
There is nothing hid from Thee. Our service in the world has 
quickened our desire to enter into the praises of Thy sanctuary, for 
we have felt as men who sigh in a far-off land for the sweetness 
and comfort of home. Now we are in Thy house, and a sense of 
safety makes us glad ; we feel that we are in a City of Refuge, into 
which no man-slayer may enter. This is our Father's house, and 
the enemy has no place in it. Thou dost shut the gate upon all 
our foes. Come, then, and meet us ; speak comfortably to our 
hearts, and by the infinite tenderness of Thy love, rather than by 
the alarming thunder of Thy law, do Thou bow down our hearts in 
the joyful sorrow of penitence. V^^hat shall we say of our sin? 
We cannot speak of it without shame and confusion of face, especi- 
ally when we think of all the mercy Thou hast shown to us. God 
be merciful unto us sinners ! 

■ We lay our hand upon the cross, and find all our hope in the 
blood of Thy Son, which cleanseth from all sin. Think of us in 
Jesus Christ's name, and our sins shall not shut Thee out. Thou 
seekest to dwell in us as in a holy temple ; come and be the only 
guest in the whole sanctuary of our love. While we are yet speak- 
ing of our sin do Thou forgive it ; and though we would not have 
our sense of its enormity diminished, we would see Thy love over- 
shadowing and exceeding our great sinfulness. Even now while 
we are in this, Thy house, let us hear Thee saying that all our sin 
is cast behind Thee. We know not how to tell Thee of our many 
wants ; our joy is that Thou needst not to be told. As Thy great 
waters flood all the beds of the sea, and Thy rains fall even upon 
the desert and the rock, and the light of Thy sun shines upon all 
(296) - 



PRAYERS. 



297 



the earth, even more doth Thy lore pour itself down upon the 
poYertj of our needy and anxious hearts. We would be wise in 
Thy wisdom ; we would love according to the measure of Thy love. 
We would be high above the world, as Thou art. We would par- 
talie of Thy riches. Thou hast given us all that has ever been for 
our good — every clear idea of truth, every tender emotion, every 
aspiration which has raised us above grovelling pursuits — nor have 
we exhausted Thee : Thou art the everlasting Father, full of riches 
which Thou offerest to the children of men ; therefore we come 
again to the overflowing river of Thy loving-kindness. We aspire 
very high this morning, encouraged to do so by Thy providential 
mercies. Thou hast given us the joy of early harvest ; Thou hast 
made a way for the lightning, and through the paths of the thunder 
Thou hast poured the cool and refreshing rain upon the parched 
fields. 

Thou hast also showers of blessings for Thy chui'ch ; yea, even a 
blessing which the church has not room enough to contain. Excite 
in OUT hearts intense longings for this blessing, that we may give 
Thee no rest until Thou hast opened the windows of heaven. Give 
us a firmer hold of Thy truth and a truer experience of Christ's un- 
speakable peace. And may we prove that Thou hast heard us by 
living a godly and more heavenly life among men. 

We believe that the effectual, fervent prayer of the righteous 
man availeth much, and we would not forget to make intercession 
this day for all those for whom Thou hast commanded us to pray — 
for our rulers of every grade, from the President to the humblest 
officers of the law. Counsel our counsellors, and teach our Sena- 
tors wisdom. May they rule us in the fear of the Lord, and through 
their wise governance may we become that happy people whose 
God is the Lord. Pour out Thy Holy Spirit on all schools and 
colleges and seminaries of learning, so that from these fountains 
may issue streams which shall make glad the city of our God. Illum- 
inate the printed page, and bless aU Bibles and tracts and rehgi- 
ous newspapers. Lnpart heavenly wisdom to those who conduct 
them. Bless all the inmates of hospitals, the deaf, the dumb, the 
blind. Restore to soundness of mind aU who are bereft of reason. 
Heal all who are tossing on beds of languishing. Smooth with 
Thine own soft hand the couch of the incurable sufferer, and give 
her gTace to show by her patience that the Gospel is the power of 



298 



PRAYERS. 



God not only to save tlie soul, but to sanctify the heart. Comfort 
all Thine afflicted, sorrowing, bereaved children. Be the God of 
the widow, the father of the fatherless. Extend the shield of Thy 
protection over all who travel by land or by sea. Bless all sailors 
who do business on the mighty waters ; all soldiers who are far re- 
moved from the means of Grace ; all commercial travellers, and all 
railroad employes who, thi'ough the avarice of great corporations, 
are constantly breaking Thy laws, — may they remember the Sabbath 
day to keep it holy. Bless all poUcemen, those trusty guardians of 
our homes, who watch for us while we sleep ; and all firemen, those 
brave men who rescue our property from the flames, and who are 
often exposed to peril on our behalf. And, O God, bless all prison- 
ers and such as are appointed to die ; and the poor, the outcast, 
and the homeless. We beseech Thy tender compassion for all 
prodigal sons over whose waywardness pious parents are mourning 
in heaviness of heart. Recall them from their wanderings. We 
make intercession for this world which Heth in wickedness. Hasten 
the day w^hen all flesh shall know Thee, when Jesus shall see of the 
travail of His soul and shall be satisfied ; hasten the reign of uni- 
versal peace throughout the world, the prosperity of the Church uni- 
versal, when Zion shall shake herself from the dust and arise and 
shine, the glory of the Lord being risen upon her. Bless the Jews, 
Thine ancient people. Give success to all missionaries at home and 
abroad; may their lives be precious in Thy sight. Bless Thy Word; 
may it not return unto Thee void. And bless, we beseech Thee, all 
who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, our brethren among the 
heathen, who are exposed to the temptation of renouncing their 
faith. Pour out Thy Holy Spirit upon all our Sunday-schools, and 
from these nurseries of the church may there be transplanted stately 
trees to adorn the garden of our Lord. And now we pray for a 
blessing upon us — as we wait before Thee — upon this church, its 
elders, deacons, and all its members, and upon the strangers who 
may be with us ; may they feel at home in this their Father's 
house. Finally, we pray for all the unconverted members of the 
church, and for all sinners, that the Holy Spirit would this day 
rend the heavens and come down and save their souls ; and all the 
praise shall be to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in a world 
without end. Amen. 



PRAYERS. 



299 



MOENING PEAYEK. 

O God, Tliou art our God and our Father. Doubtless Thou art 
our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us and Israel acknowl- 
edge us not. Thou, O Lord, art oui' Father, and we will exalt Thee. 
Thou art very great, clothed with honor and majesty. Thou coverest 
Thyself with light as with a garment, and in Thee is no darkness 
at all. Thou art God alone, and beside Thee there is none else. 
The heavens declare Thy glory. Thou art worthy, O Lord, to re- 
ceive blessing and honor and glory and power, for Thou hast cre- 
ated all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created. 
The earth is full of Thy riches ; Thy kingdom ruleth over all. A 
sparrow falls not to the ground without our Father, and the hau's 
of our head are all numbered. Thou hast made us and not we our- 
selves. We are not our own, but Thine, Thy people and the sheep 
of Thy pasture. In Thee we live and move and have our being. 
Thou hast redeemed us from evil, we are bought with a price. It 
is of Th}' mercy we are not consumed, because Thy compassions fail 
not. Thou hast appointed a High Priest in whose name we come 
boldly to Thy throne of grace. Y/ e make mention of the righte- 
ousness of Christ and of His only. 

CONFESSION. 

Most merciful God, we come to Thee in humble dependence 
upon His atonement and intercession, and confess our sins which 
are many and great. Against Thee, Thee only have we sinned; to 
us belongeth shame and confusion of face. Behold we are vile ; 
what shall we answer Thee ? We have ruined ourselves, but in 
Thee is oar help. If Thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquity, who 
could stand ? But there is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mayest 
be feared. With Thee is mercy ; yea, with out' God there is plente- 
ous redemption. We thank Thee that Thou hast so loved the world 
as to give Thine only begotten Son, that whosoever belie veth in 
Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 

SUPPLICATION. 

In the all-prevailing name of Jesus of Nazareth, a name with 
which Thou art ever well-pleased, ^^e present our prayers and sup- 
plications to Thee. And now. Lord, what wait we for ? Our eyes 



300 



PRAYERS. 



are unto Tliee and our hope is in Tliee, througli Jesus Christ our 
Eedeemer. Deliver us from our transgressions ; and, O God, be 
merciful to us sinners. Wash us thoroughly from our iniquity and 
cleanse us from our sins, for we acknowledge our transgressions, 
and our sins are ever before us. Justify us freely by Thy grace 
through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ our Lord. Work in 
us the work of faith with power. Give us a goodly sorrow and true 
repentance. Shed abroad Thy love in our hearts. May our con- 
science be always tender ; may we abstain from the appearance of 
evil. Enable us to be circumspect in all our conversation, watch- 
ing over our thoughts, our lips, and our lives. May we be diligent 
in every duty, performing it with a ready mind and with joy and 
gladness of heart. Grant that we may increase in godliness, that 
we may grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and 
Saviour, Jesus Christ. O Lord, Thou who art the confidence of all 
the ends of the earth, preserve us from temptation, support us 
under afflictions, comfoii us in sorrow, make us useful in life, pre- 
pare us for death, and when we have done serving Thee here be- 
low, admit us, we beseech Thee, to that state of rest and perfection 
which Thou hast prepared for Thy people in the heavenly world. 



THANKSGIVING. 

We thank Thee for Thy Son, for Thy Spirit, for Thy Word, Thy 
ministry, the Sabbath, and sanctuary blessings; for life and breath, 
and all things ; for sweet communion with Thee, for gracious 
answers to our prayers, for succor in temptation, support under 
trouble, and for the joyful hopes of a glorious immortality. Hear 
our supplications and accept our thanksgiving for Christ's sake. 



LNTEKCESSION. 

For President, Congressmen, Governor, and Magistrates; Police- 
men, Firemen, Travellers by land and sea, Sailors, Soldiers, Eail- 
road employes. Steamboat men, Commercial travellers. Blind, Deaf, 
Dumb, Insane, Prisoners and those appointed to die, Poor, Out- 
cast, Homeless, Widows, Orphans, Fatherless, Sick and Afflicted, 
Sunday-schools, Colleges, Prodigal Sons, Missionaries at home and 



PRAYERS. 



301 



abroad. Cliiirch Universal, This Churcli, Elders, Deacons, Private 
members. Strangers witli us, etc. 



ISToTE. — We have heard of a minister who said "if he had only five minutes 
to pray he would like to spend four of them in preparation." As this seems to 
" accord with Mr. Pratt's habit, on that account we are able to comply with the 
request of those ministers who asked that some of his prayers be included in 
this volume. 



''Iitixt Umvtl a voice from teawix^ Ba^itig 
unto mje, WivxU, gleBBM arje tlxe ileajft wMjcIx 
&U in tUt %ovd from Umccfovth : ^ea^ Battle 
the spirit, tlxnt tlxetj matj mst from tteir 
latorB; tUziv xoorfes do folloxxr ttcjem/^ 

Revelation xiv. 13. 



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